Clash of the Smashers
by Lord Drash
Summary: An adventure like no other! Ten...nine heroes band together to stop Master Hand from combining forces with the villains from multiple worlds, and starting a third and final tournament...But can the heroes themselves be trusted? FINALLY COMPLETE!
1. Let's meet our heroes!

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter One: Let's Meet our Heroes!**

**_(Disclaimer: Just in case you were wondering…I do not own Mario or anything else in this story…except for the ideas…those are mine. Mostly)_**

After finishing their battles in what the Smashers affectionately call "Super Smash Bros. Melee!" most of them went off to their respective homelands to vacation, or to go on to more fun adventures, with less violent fighting. An adventure without violent fighting, like that's going to happen. However Princess Peach was afraid that Bowser, naughty super villain that he is, would try something while she was away on a diplomatic mission. So she told Mario and Yoshi to guard her castle. Luigi went with Peach as her mission took him near his sweetheart Daisy whom he has developed a fondness for. Mario managed to net eight more people, either Smashers or friends/arch-rivals of some Smashers to help with guarding the castle. These ten people are…

Mario: The savior of the Mushroom Kingdom and bane of Bowser. A pudgy man with an oversized nose, red shirt and blue overalls, he wears a red cap with the letter M on it as well as white gloves. Although all he says is his catch phrases, and acts like a reckless idiot there seems to be a lot more to him than meets the eye. For example he was the undisputed champion of Melee, as his surprisingly powerful moves beat out his competitors. He has a freakishly good jumping ability as well as a large hammer that he did not use in the matches. He also is very fast and has the ability to shoot fireballs and parry projectiles with his magic cape. In the original Smash contest he came in second to Link. Speaking of him…

Link: The silent swordsman and champion of the first Super Smash Bros., he lost in Melee to the Japanese newcomer Marth who in turn lost to Mario in the finals. Link is known as the Hero of Time in his native homeland of Hyrule. He is a blond young man in his late teens. He wears a green "Man-skirt" and a strange long pointy hat that flops behind his head. He wears white skin tight legging…things on his legs and arms. He wields medieval weaponry such as a bow and arrows, bombs, a boomerang, a shield and a mystical sword called "The Master Sword". He also uses a strange device he calls the "Hookshot." The Hookshot has the ability to grab foes from far away and drag them closer or latch onto things and bring Link to them.

Yoshi: A green dinosaur like creature, he uses a series of egg like attacks such as throwing eggs, trapping his opponents in one or going inside an egg to roll around and bash people. However after losing in the first round of Melee, then losing in the loser tournaments that the contestants used to see who came in what place (he was second to last) caused him to snap. (Obviously the last place finisher was Pichu as he was unable to attack without causing severe pain to himself.) Yoshi now spends all of his time mumbling about an ultimate attack he has called "Yoshi Boom!" which he claims comes from strange blue balls he calls "Boomers". None of these exist and Peach was quite cautious about leaving him behind but Mario claimed he would take care of that. (How he did that while only uttering his catch-phrases…who knows.)

Samus: A hardened warrior woman encased in strong orange alien armor, she has the ability to fire missiles, and energy beams from her hand cannon…or as she calls them "Power Beams". She also has a "Grappling Beam." Similar in use to the Hookshot, only it uses electricity to grab things. (At least I think it is electricity…cursed hi-tech alien devices!) Samus also has an interesting move called the "Screw Attack" where she folds herself up and spins through the air with a glowy force field surrounding her. This obviously hurts whoever it hits. Her final and strangest ability is the "Morph Ball". In this one she literally becomes a small and speedy ball, which although seems impossible she manages it quite well. This form allows her to lay small bombs around which can cause slight damage to foes. Samus always finishes near the top in the Smash contests and is extremely strong. She doesn't talk much and most think her indifferent, but she has a strong sense of justice and leapt at the chance to help Peach.

Kirby: A bizarre pink puffball, Kirby is a spherical creature. He is only three feet tall which is small compared to Link and Samus's six feet and Mario's five foot ten, and Yoshi's five feet. Kirby continues the trend of reasonably quiet heroes. He has a cheerful attitude and mostly just says YAY, Ok, or Agh, depending on the situation. Unbelievably cute with his smiling face, even enemies have been known to call him adorable…right before they attack him. He has tiny cylindrical arms and big feet, but no hands or legs to speak of. He wields a sword he calls the "Cutter" which when slammed into the ground it shoots off a medium ranged blue shockwave. He also has the ability to turn himself into a rock temporarily and he uses a large hammer…but not to the proficiency that Mario does. However Kirby's ultimate power is the ability to suck up enemies and utilize some of their basic powers before being damaged too much, such as Mario's fireball, or Link's arrows. This power took him pretty far in the Smash tournament, but Samus used a charge function on her arm cannon and blew him away, resulting in him losing.

Falco: Falco is a "friend" I suppose of Fox, although they occasionally don't get along too well. Falco is the sixth person set to guard the castle. A bird like creature he is tall and walks on two legs. He lacks the ability to fly but can jump almost as high as Mario. He's of pretty average speed, but his moves more than make up for that. He carries a pistol which can fire weak laser shots at a long distance at an average rate of fire. He can also cover himself in fire and shoot off very fast, thanks to some strange technology. Falco can also use a device he calls "Falco Phantasm" which is essentially the same as Fox's favorite move "Fox Illusion" where they dash at incredibly high speeds but only for a VERY short distance. The final skill that Falco has is a blue force field that reflects projectile attacks, but nothing else.

Meta-Knight: A rival so to speak of Kirby. He wears an armored mask so all anyone can see of his face is bright yellow eyes. His body shape is similar to Kirby's as in it is a round ball…but Meta-Knight (Or Meta for short) also has wings that merge to form his cape and a powerful sword that he wields quite well. He is intelligent and reasonably quiet although he occasionally goes into monologues. (Hey he used to be a villain, give him SOME credit.) He says he'll probably show up for the third Smash tournament.

Raichu: An electric mouse creature, he was not in the Smash fights but was a close friend of both Pikachu and Pichu who essentially demanded that he guard the castle, while they go on a fun vacationy thing. He is about the size of Kirby and has a long tail. He has multiple abilities, mostly revolving around shocking things. He is at the castle, because he wants something from the others. Although he speaks in the peculiar pokemon language (Which is the respective characters name repeated over and over) due to some weird dimensional warp thing all languages are universally understood, so he can talk to others and be understood and vice versa. The reason Pikachu, Pichu and Jigglypuff did not communicate with others besides saying their names was because they were arrogant jerks. (Except for Pikachu, he just didn't like saying anything else.)

Diddy: Another person not in the Smasher tournaments, this T-shirt wearing chimp is a close friend of Donkey Kong. While Donkey Kong and Mario used to have an intense rivalry, Donkey Kong has let it drop figuring that 25 years is too long to hold a grudge. Mario of course secretly still harbors resentment as he can be rather petty. Diddy has powerful tail techniques, dual peanut popguns and a jetpack that works for a limited amount of time. He has a cheerful attitude and he and Raichu get along pretty well. Diddy also wants something from the others

Bario: The tenth and final person sent to guard the castle; he is the only one no one seems to have any connections to. He claims he is from Hyrule, just like Link but Link has never met him before. He wears clothing similar to Link's with a similar hat, although his clothing is bright red and his hat…hood…thing has the letter B on it just like Mario's M and he has dark purple hair. He wields a sword of similar size and shape as the "Master Sword", but it is not a mystical sword given to him from the goddesses. He showed up and asked to help guard the castle, although the others were unaware of how he knew about the guarding. The other nine were all contacted by either Peach or a friend…but Bario seemed to just know. He seemed trustworthy though, as he was friendly and cheerful.

These ten people, decided to call themselves the Smashers for their little guarding session. It wasn't entirely inaccurate, six of them WERE Smashers and one was going to be…so they figured that would work. They were chilling on top of Peach's castle drinking some mushroom liquids and listening to Yoshi babble on about how he will crush them all in the next tournament with his new attack.

"So as I was saying…Yoshi Boom will explode and ANNIHILATE you ALL!" Yoshi cackled.

This made Meta rather annoyed as this was the third time he heard Yoshi say the exact same thing.

"So tell me Yoshi…if this attack causes such a big and powerful explosion…what would prevent you from being damaged from it?"

Yoshi was unable to come up with a response…so he popped out an egg and ate it; much to the disgust of Falco who was watching the conversation.

"Geez man! That's like really twisted! I mean…Ew!"

Yoshi responded "Is not!"

And so the two got into a "Is too, is not" argument. Meta shook his… head…body…thing…and wandered over to Bario.

Bario was lounging by one of the castle turrets while watching Mario jump from one side of the castle to the other. He saw Meta-Knight walking over to him.

"Hey Meta! What's up?"

"Those fools," Meta told him, "are very annoying."

"Oh…well I'm sure they'll get better. And we won't be here that long, just a day or two more, as Peach won't be long," Bario said.

Mario landed in front of Meta.

"Woohoo!" he shouted, before leaping off again.

"That man is very strange," Meta informed Bario.

"Yes…he is a little…different, but I hear he is a great hero…but he's not what I expected," Bario said.

In the meantime Diddy and Raichu were getting acquainted.

"So…you know Pikachu?" Diddy asked.

"Yeah…why?"

Diddy shrugged.

"I was just curious. Donkey Kong keeps saying how cheap he is and he cheats all the time-"

Raichu angrily looked at Diddy.

"Pikachu doesn't cheat! Just because he BEAT Donkey Kong doesn't mean-"

Diddy raised his paws to get Raichu to stop.

"I didn't say I agreed with Donkey Kong…I was just telling you what he thought."

"Oh…," said the rather foolish feeling Raichu "Uh…sorry."

"It's okay."

Mario jumps over.

"Babies!"

Mario jumps away. Both Raichu and Diddy look at each other in confusion.

The final three of our group of ten was Link, Samus and Kirby. They seemed to be having a "Who can be the most SILENT contest?" Link and Samus seemed to be winning as Kirby kept going "YAY!" every few minutes.

Bario sighed at all the strange characters and good-naturedly smiled and shook his head. They almost made him feel sorry for…no, not quite there yet, worry about it later. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and took a look at courtyard in front of the castle. Something was coming!

"Hey…guys…we got some strange things coming up fast!

The other Smashers immediately stopped what they were doing and took a look over the side.

"What the heck are those?!" Falco asked.

Yoshi was about to respond but Bario cut in.

"Those are Goombas, Boos and Bob-ombs, common enemies from around here."

Diddy gave Bario a strange look.

"Hey Bario…you're not from around here…so how do you know about them?" Bario looked flustered for a second before coming up with a response.

"Uh I studied a lot about enemies from different areas so yeah…" He trailed off but Diddy still looked at him suspiciously before a cry cut through the air.

"Woohoo!"

Goombas are fairly weak brown, armless creatures, with large bulbous eyes and two fangs that they don't often use. They have big feet and are about two feet tall on average. They are the basic grunts of Bowser's army.

Boos are white ghost like creatures with small, almost flipper like hands, no legs and a round body. They have large mouths and the ability to go transparent. They are fond of scaring people and are definitely mischievous but not really evil or great fighters. About two feet in diameter makes them about the same size as a Goomba but they have a little bit more offensive power.

Bob-ombs are smaller then both, about a foot and a half…but they are definitely the most dangerous. They are essentially walking time bombs. They can set themselves to explode at any time when something makes them angry, which is pretty much everything, but they'll usually try a weak ram attack before their kamikaze explosion.

While Diddy was questioning Bario, Mario charged off the side of the castle and landed on his feet quite easily despite the considerable drop. He then charged the small army. There was three Boos, four Goombas and three Bob-ombs, which although a larger force than what Mario usually deals with, still not too big a deal. He slammed two of the Goombas with his hammer before they even realized that Mario was attacking them, so intent were they on their goal of reaching the castle. The other two Goombas hit Mario on the side with a head-bonk attack, which was basically a tackle with their slightly pointy heads.

After getting over the shock of seeing Mario dive into combat, Bario took command.

"Come on guys! Let's help him out!"

Bario charged for the fight…and tripped right over the edge of the castle. He lay on the ground trying to get to his feet while the other seven easily made it down. As Meta passed, folding up his wings into his cape ultra cool like, Bario distinctly heard him call him a fool.

Mario fell to the ground, slightly hurt from the attack but was about to start battling again when a Boo came up to try and hit him. Mario was unaware of the attack as he was focusing on the two remaining Goombas, when the Boo got hit by a ball of electricity. Mario turned just in time to see Raichu jump on it and repeatedly shock it. Mario gave a brief nod to Raichu before diving in again.

The rest of the fight was quick and ended in about ten seconds. No one was seriously injured, although there was a second of worry, because as soon as Bario managed to get to the fight, the three Bob-ombs, knowing of their inevitable loss lit their fuses and charged for him, hoping to take out at least one person. Link and Samus put a quick stop to that as their arrows and Power Beam shots caused the Bob-ombs to explode prematurely and not cause any damage to anyone.  
Raichu took a look around and seeing no more enemies decided to relax.

"Hey guys great job-"

Suddenly there was a loud rumbling. The Smashers quickly turned to the small forest near the castle. Something was moving there. Several something's in fact. They got into fighting stances for whatever came out…but they weren't expecting what did…

(Author's Note: This story is based on a forum known as "Smash RPG, or the "RPG of DOOM!" The administrator of the forum, considering I helped him come up with the idea permitted me to write this story. I did NOT rip this idea off him. Let me know what you think, and if I should continue the story. REVIEWS!)


	2. Bombs, Boos and Goombas…Oh my!

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Two: Bombs, Boos and Goombas…Oh my!**

The thing that popped out of the forest was entirely unexpected for the Smashers. It was a Goomba. Yes. One measly little Goomba. Falco looked at the other Smashers in confusion.

"Uh…is it just me or could that little guy NOT make that much noise?"

The Smashers lowered their fighting stances…just as two more Goombas jumped out. Raichu decided to speak this time.

"That doesn't look-"

Before he could finish his sentence seventeen more Goombas jumped out of the forest and formed a line. Diddy shivered a bit at seeing all the creatures lining up. Before anyone could do anything though, a massive creature jumped out and landed in front of the line of Goombas.

This thing was the shape of a Goomba, although it was easily seven feet tall…and proportionally as wide, making it a thing of large girth. It had a small gold crown on its head and a thick white mustache. Its eyes appeared to be going in opposite directions. It opened its large mouth…and spoke.  
"Hello fools! I am the mighty Goomba King, although I'm also known as Goomboss. My little army here is going to take over this castle, and capture you and hopefully…heh…you'll come peacefully. If not well…then we'll have to take you BY FORCE!"

The vile Goomba laughed. However his cackling was brought to an abrupt end when Bario spoke.

"And what honestly makes you think that you can defeat us?"

The Goomba King looked at Bario like he was confused that such a lowly worm would speak to him.

"So fool…you believe that you can stop my army?"

Bario gave the Goomba King a brief scornful laugh.

"Of course we can! I bet Mario alone could probably take you all on and win!"

At this Mario made a heroic pose. The other Smashers started to look a little more confident. The Goomba King began to look apprehensive, as he realized Bario's logic…however it didn't take long for him to remember something and recover his evil grin.

"You make a good point feeble one…but what you probably aren't able to take on is THIS army!"

At the sound of his words forty more enemies popped up. Twenty Boos, and twenty Bob-ombs all jumped out of the forest. Quickly following their emergence was King Bob-omb, a massive Bob-omb…lacking a fuse or wind-up key, instead he had a big bushy mustache and a pointy crown as well as two large mitten-like hands that floated in front of him. Also floating in was King Boo, who was an oversized Boo…with guess what? A crown! Upon seeing these new foes Bario's confidence seemed to falter.

"Oh…well…I guess that might be…a little tough…"

Without waiting for him to finish 40 enemies all charged the fifty feet between the Smashers and them. The Kings stayed back so they could enjoy the show, as did the Bob-ombs.

As soon as the enemies started to charge Samus and Link began firing their Power Beam shots and Arrows, in order to take out some of the enemies. They managed to get three Goombas and a Boo, before they were too close for long distance attacks. The seventeen remaining Goombas formed a loose semicircle around the Smashers, while the nineteen Boos floated above them. King Boo took this brief reprieve as time to gloat a bit.

"Ha! You fools don't stand a chance against our awesome forces-"

Before he could finish Mario charged the enemies. He shot off several fireballs, which severely damaged a few of the Boos and then used his hammer to start smashing the Goombas. This was everyone's cue to attack. Bario leapt in and slashed away at some of them, as did Link. Samus stayed out of the main fight and fired charge shots at clusters of enemies. Raichu shocked several of the Goombas, while avoiding their head-bonks, as Kirby battered several with his oversized hammer. Falco shot at some Boos, keeping them distracted…until three started ramming him. Diddy was about to attack when he noticed Goomboss and the other enemies standing off to the side.

"Grr…those cowardly Kings…I bet we'll finish off their minions faster if we get rid of their leadership…"

He ducked under a random Boo and used his jet pack to fly out of the battle area. Both the Goomba King and King Boo were on opposite sides of the battle field, about twenty yards away. Diddy's jetpack gave out as soon as he was out of the main fight and he fell to the ground, rolled and ran for Goomboss.

The rest of the Smashers continued pretty well, most of them took almost no hits and the hits they were dealt were pretty weak, after all Boos and Goombas aren't great fighters. Soon all but six of the Goombas were killed, (Yes killed, some of the Smashers ARE using pointy painful weapons and blunt trauma is pretty good at causing death) and only eight Boos were left. The nine Smashers were prepared to deal the final attacks when suddenly Raichu realized something…

"Hey! Where are the Bob-ombs?"  
Yes…all the Bob-ombs weren't in the fight! And King Bob-omb wasn't watching like the other Kings either. Before they could find the Bob-ombs the remaining fourteen enemies charged. Eight of the Smashers met them and started parrying and attacking. This part of the fight seemed like it would last a little longer as the Boos were going all invisible and impossible to hit. Raichu hung back, crawled away from the enemies, stood up and looked around. He soon spotted the twenty Bob-ombs trying to be sneaky as they rolled to the castle. King Bob-omb led his volatile army. Raichu got on all fours and ran for the bombs.

"I don't know what those Bob-ombs are doing…but I have a feeling that whatever it is, its bad and I'll stop them!"

Link ducked under a Boo trying to ram him and while it looked around confusedly he stabbed it in the…whatever ghosts call their back. It gave a short shriek and then disappeared. Only seven Boos and three Goombas left. However before the Smashers could do anything the Boos ran through the Goombas, making them invisible, before going invisible as well!

"I didn't know they could do that…," Bario said.

The ten invisible enemies charged. Kirby started his awesome suction powers and promptly inhaled a Boo. He then swallowed it, gaining no new powers. A Goomba hit him from behind and he fell over. He pulled out his hammer and swung wildly hoping to hit something, until he did. Mario. Mario caught the hammer with ONE hand. Yes, Kirby's massive hammer. Kirby looked sheepishly at Mario while Mario gave Kirby a cold glare, and shook his head. Kirby put away the hammer as Mario ducked. An invisible Goomba flew over his head, which he set aflame with a fireball.

Yoshi threw an egg at the ground hoping to hit something…but something hit him. A Boo came up from behind and hit him in the head, causing him to stumble and land in his own egg shell. (The types of eggs that Yoshis use as weapons contain no yolk or sticky substance.) He angrily spun around and jumped in the air. He let loose a ferocious volley of kicks but the invisible Boo was two feet away from where he was kicking. It hit him again and he fell to the ground. Starting to get a little worried he ran away from the fight in a brief panic…not noticing that he was heading right for King Boo…

Meanwhile Diddy had just about reached Goomboss. He took a long circuitous route so the Goomba King wouldn't see him and now he was behind the massive Goomba. He quietly pulled out his peanut shooters (Literally, they are two pistols that fire peanuts very fast and painfully.) and aimed at its back. He fired three times with each before it clicked…not good! He left the rest of his ammo on the castle roof! That was dumb. The six peanuts collided with Goomboss, causing him a little bit of pain. He angrily turned around and spotted Diddy crouching and looking a little bit frightened.

"So monkey, you dare attack ME! King of ALL the Goombas?! Well let's see how you like THIS!"

The King charged at Diddy…

Bario swung his blade but missed whatever he was aiming at, he had no clue. An invisible Goomba ran into one of his knees from behind, causing him to fall. By his count there were still eight invisible enemies, two Goombas and six Boos. He had no idea they could maintain their invisibility this long. He couldn't take it; they HAD to come up with a new idea. And they did. Samus switched her visor from combat to Echo-Visor, a special type of visor that let her see the echoes things make while moving around. This let her see even invisible enemies like Goombas and Boos, as even floating they still make some slight noises, or noise bounces off of them. And where the noise bounces off, that's where they are. She spotted some enemies and since they weren't expecting to be attacked she caught them by surprise and quickly blew up three, one Goomba and two Boos, with her missiles. The last Goomba and one Boo hit her from behind causing her to lose her focus, and turn her attention on them.

Raichu managed to get near the Bob-ombs, but one spotted him running towards them and alerted the rest. King Bob-omb dismissively sent three of his twenty lackeys to take out Raichu while they continued toward the castle. Figuring that there was no need to try to be sneaky the rest of the Bob-ombs broke into a full out run, which considering their tiny legs was about walking speed. Raichu came to an abrupt stop when he saw the bombs. He was preparing to shock them when one quickly dashed forward and hit him with its solid metallic body. He flew back, but had the presence of mind to land on his feet. He sent a small electric ball at the Bob-omb which angered it, but didn't hurt it that much. It lit its fuse and charged at him. Raichu easily side-stepped and the clumsy creature tripped trying to turn around and exploded. Two left…

Falco turned on his Reflector on an instinct and a Boo that tried to hit him got fried in the brief electrical field the Reflector generates when it is turned on. The Boo lost control of its invisibility and Falco could spot it. He quickly attacked it with a few kicks, and slammed it with his wing, causing it to squeal and disappear from this plane of existence. Kirby helped Samus finish off the last of the enemies. Bario noticed that three of the Smashers weren't there. He took a look around to find them…

Yoshi ran at King Boo, still not noticing him. King Boo spotted him though, and it didn't look as though he was going to let the dinosaur like creature hit him.

"So, one of the Smashers is going to do a brave assault to take out ME? Ha ha ha! Come my Boos, take him down!"

Five Boos that were hiding out near King Boo, just in case, revealed themselves and headed for Yoshi. Yoshi still did not notice anything, so busy was he in running like a wussy that it wasn't until a Boo hit him that he realized they were there. He came to an abrupt stop and looked around to see the Boos arranged in a pentagon around him, preventing him from escaping. A slow grin came to his face…

"So…now everyone will see the awesome might…of my YOSHI BOOM!"

Bario soon spotted the missing Smashers, as each one was by a King. Bario quickly gestured to the other Smashers, trying to get their attention.

"Hey! Guys!"  
They all stopped checking to make sure there were no more invisible enemies and faced him.

"What do you want?" Falco asked.

"Well…," Bario started "Three of our friends ran off to take out the Kings…and I think they could use some help! Mario, Meta and I will go help out Raichu. Samus, Falco, Kirby and Link should help out Diddy!"  
Bario gave a quick, encouraging smile to them all.   
"Uh…what about Yoshi?" Falco asked.

"Oh, I'm sure he can handle himself! Let's go!" Bario said.

The seven Smashers all ran off. Meanwhile Diddy was locked in combat with the Goomba King.

"Agh!" Diddy shouted as he activated his jet pack. Fortunately it had had enough time to charge and came to life. He shot up in the air, right over Goomboss. The Goomba King frantically looked around for Diddy.

"Where'd that little monkey go? I am going to CRUSH you!"  
Diddy quietly dropped to the ground behind the Goomba King and charged up his tail for his ultimate attack. Goomboss couldn't find Diddy so he turned around…right when Diddy unleashed his attack. His swing hit the King full on in the face. There was a moment while both combatants stood motionless. Then Diddy lowered his tail. The Goomba King started to shake. Afraid he was going to explode Diddy started to back up…but while he did explode, it wasn't in the way Diddy was expecting…and this explosion was far more terrifying then Diddy could have anticipated. It was an explosion…of laughter.

"HA HA HA! Is that the best you have monkey? I barely even felt that! Heh…this will be even easier then I expected…prepare to DIE!"  
Diddy was frozen with shock. His best attack had hit his foe…and his enemy laughed. He was useless…and he was going to die. Or at least that's what he thought until an arrow suddenly appeared in the side of the King.

"AUGH! What? Who dares strike me?!"  
The cavalry had arrived!

Meanwhile Raichu was trying to finish off the two Bob-ombs. He sent a shock ball at one. The Bob-omb was slightly damaged and tried the whole lighting its fuse thing. Raichu was going to dodge again, when the second Bob-omb rammed him, causing him to lose his balance and fall. The lit Bob-omb charged for him, and he was unable to move fast enough to avoid it…until Meta-Knight appeared and knocked it away with his sword. The Bob-omb tumbled a few feet and then exploded harmlessly. Raichu was surprised as Mario and Bario also appeared in his vision

"Thanks! I thought I was a goner!"

Bario just laughed.  
"Don't mention it. We're in this together right?"

"You were a fool to try and take on the Bob-ombs by yourself," Meta told him.

"Uh…thanks…I think," Raichu said.

The last Bob-omb lit its fuse and charged for the four Smashers. Mario grabbed it and threw it with impressive force and accuracy. It landed in the middle of the Bob-omb army and exploded…setting all of them off as well. King Bob-omb was caught in the massive explosion and was sent flying. He didn't explode since for some reason he doesn't have a fuse. He landed right in front of the four Smashers. They were about to celebrate their victory with some cheers and slaps on the back…until King Bob-omb stood up.

"Grrr…you have destroyed my army and my hopes of destroying Princess Peach's Castle, which will make Bowser furious with me since that was what I was ordered to do…but…I can at least destroy you!"

King Bob-omb got into a ready position…and Raichu, Mario, Meta and Bario prepared to battle.

Meanwhile Yoshi ducked under the wild attacks of the five Boos. They collided with each other and were temporarily incapacitated. Yoshi then shot off several of his eggs, which upon impacting the already weakened Boos, destroyed them. King Boo looked a little hesitant.

"So…you have some skill…but I promise you, it won't be enough to cause me to lose! I am King Boo! The most powerful of all the ghosts! And you, Yoshi, don't stand a chance!"  
Yoshi just looked at King Boo defiantly…and smiled.

"Ha! I won't need a chance! All I need is…the Yoshi Boom! YOSHI BOOM…RELEASE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Yoshi started screaming in that way that people do when they think they're being cool and about to unleash something really powerful. At the sound of his scream and in the face of Yoshi's utter confidence King Boo was a little worried and started to float back a bit. Yoshi stuck his hands straight up above his head…and waved them around! He then charged for King Boo. King Boo closed his eyes expecting an incredible amount of pain to follow. He had his eyes closed for a little bit…but after a while, still hearing Yoshi screaming caused him to open them. And what he saw…was really weird.

Yoshi was running around in circles waving his arms about and screaming. King Boo watched him for a second before he started to get really freaked out.

"Uh…hey! Hey! Yoshi! Stop that! Stop! STOP!"

Meanwhile, at the fight with Goomboss, Link, Samus, Falco and Kirby had arrived to give Diddy a helping hand. Goomboss turned his attention away from the frightened monkey and focused on the new challengers. Falco shot off several laser blasts but they were ineffective. Goomboss gave a growl of anger and charged. Falco used his Falco Phantasm to dash out of the way and Kirby just jumped and floated away, but Link and Samus weren't fast enough. They were sent flying by the Goomba King's impressive bulk and Goomboss turned, about to charge for Falco, when a large rock (Kirby) hit him in the head. The Goomba King gave out a low groan before collapsing to the ground. Then Kirby transformed back into himself and looked at Goomboss. Link and Samus picked themselves up and walked over as well. Falco gave Diddy a hand and they wandered over to Goomboss's limp body.

"Is he dead?" Diddy asked.

As if to answer his question Goomboss opened his eyes and jerked to his feet. He was about to attack…but Link shoved his sword through the King's head. Goomboss twitched once…and then exploded. For some reason as the explosion hit the five Smashers, rather then pushing them back…it healed them. Samus looked at Diddy as Link sheathed his sword.

"NOW he is," Samus told him.  
"That's great and all…but why are we all like…healed?" Falco asked.

The others just shook their heads in confusion.

Meanwhile King Bob-omb charged forward and punched Bario. Bario was knocked to the ground. Raichu jumped on King Bob-omb's back and started repeatedly shocking him.

"Agh! Get off me you rodent!" King Bob-omb said.

He suddenly fell to the ground and started rolling. Raichu leapt off before he could get crushed and the King clambered to his feet.

"A fast one eh? Well…you are quick but I bet you're not quick enough for-Ack!" King Bob-omb said, as Mario jumped at him.

However before Mario could land the King grabbed him and threw him near Meta. Mario landed rather roughly, and it took him some effort to get to his feet.  
"Heh, you fool," Meta said to Mario.

Quick as a flash Mario grabbed Meta and threw him at King Bob-omb. King Bob-omb wasn't expecting the attack and Meta's head hit King Bob-omb full on. They made a loud noise, like metal hitting metal and Meta fell to the ground unconscious. The King wobbled on his feet and Bario managed to get close to him…and stab one of his soft tender feet. King Bob-omb yelled in pain before backhanding Bario and knocking him over by Raichu.

"AGH! My foot! You FOOL! Now you will die! I have no fuse because I do not wish to explode abruptly, but I still can explode…it just requires more concentration…and I would rather take you down with me then die from you!" King Bob-omb roared.

The King started to flash red. Raichu and Bario started to worry. After all an explosion from a bomb the size of the King would probably take them all out! Mario however looked…determined. Mario bolted forward and dodged the King's frantic wild swings. Mario rolled behind King Bob-omb and grabbed him. Exerting what must have been a ton of strength Mario lifted the King…and tossed him. He only went a few feet…but the toss caused him to roll…right into the castle moat. (Of course there's a moat! All decent castles have moats!) He landed, and because of his dense body sank to the bottom. He ticked his last…and exploded. The force of the explosion caused a massive geyser of water that shot up twenty feet. Mario, Bario and Raichu walked over to each other, while Meta stayed unconscious behind them. They felt a brief wind as the water crashed back into the moat…and they were healed.

Meanwhile Yoshi was still running in circles around King Boo. Severely freaked out now he pleaded to Yoshi.

"Please stop! I won't be evil! I promise! Just stop whatever it is you're doing!"  
"YOSHI BOOM! YOSHI BOOM! YOSHI! BOOM!" Yoshi shouted.

"Oh I can't take it ANYMORE! AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!" King Boo shouted…as he exploded.

Yoshi felt restored as the wind from the explosion washed over him.   
"Heh, my move works! I knew it! Ha!" Yoshi laughed to himself.

The ten Smashers, each victorious met in the middle of the courtyard…

(Author's Note: YAY! The second chapter is done! If Diddy seems weak, well there is a reason that his attack failed and it shall be explained in the next chapter. A lot of interesting things will happen in chapter 3…and a little bit of Mario's true nature surfaces…)


	3. Break Time!

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Three: Break Time!**

The Smashers were victorious against the evil Kings, and they headed to the center of the castle courtyard to rest for a bit. As soon as they were all there (Except for Meta-Knight, as he was still unconscious) Yoshi looked at everyone with a big smile on his face. He kept this up for about twenty seconds until Falco snapped.

"WHAT? Why are you so happy?" he demanded.

"Oh no reason," Yoshi said, "Just that I defeated King Boo…all by myself…and I used my ultimate attack…the Yoshi Boom, that no one thought existed…and-"

"Shut up," Samus said.

Yoshi shut up. Mario looked at everyone and for once was still. He wasn't shouting out his catch-phrases and it looked like he was sizing everyone up. He had a shrewd look in his eye. Bario glanced around at the Smashers and noticed Diddy off to the side looking at the sky with a very defeated expression on his face. Bario walked over, his features showing concern.

"Hey…Diddy? You okay?"

Diddy jumped, surprised that Bario was there…but then went back to being depressed.

"Hey Bario…no. I'm not okay."

"Why? What's wrong?"  
"I…I…don't want to talk about it. I should just go."  
"What do you mean go? Don't go! We need you! Or at least I need you," Bario told him.

Diddy looked at Bario with a glimmer of thanks in his expression…but it was buried beneath his depression.

"You don't need me. I'm useless! I couldn't stop Goomboss and I couldn't…I couldn't save her!" he shouted in a brief second of anger.

"Wait…what do you mean…couldn't stop Goomboss?" Bario asked.

"I used my tail technique…my best move…and he just laughed it off. If that's all I can do than there is no point in me trying to take on Giga Bowser later…," Diddy said.

"Wait…you used your tail…your TAIL on Goomboss?"  
"Yeah…"

"Well no wonder it didn't work! Goomba's have a special skin that lets them resist most blunt attacks or at least ones that don't squish them, and obviously the Goomba King would have that ability as well," Bario said.

"You mean…I'm not pathetic?" Diddy asked hopefully.  
"Of course not…hey what did you mean by 'couldn't save her'?" Bario inquired.

"Oh…that…well, a few weeks ago I was on Kong Island with Dixie, my girlfriend, and we were just…being together. But I heard a rumbling so we left to investigate. Right outside our house was this massive lizard, who Donkey Kong later told me was Giga Bowser-,"

At the mention of Giga Bowser Bario winced. Diddy paused and looked at him.

"Oh…uh, I've heard of Giga Bowser before…and I know what he is capable of but please, go on," Bario said.

Diddy cleared his throat and started again.

"Giga Bowser roared at us and said something about Master Hand and then he attacked us. Dixie and I ran into the jungle. We got separated and after a while I came back to our tree house. Giga, burned it to the ground and killed Wrinkly Kong, but she somehow came back as a ghost, I'm not sure how that happened…but Dixie was gone, and I think Giga grabbed her. I don't know if he killed her or not…but I don't think her chances are good. I'm sorry for babbling on…but I really needed to tell someone."

Bario looked very understanding and patted Diddy's back.

"I'm sorry for your loss…and that is pretty bad. But don't worry! I can't speak for everyone, but I know I will help you defeat Giga!"  
Diddy smiled at Bario, and then looked excited as a thought came to him.

"Hey…Bario you know a lot about enemies…what can you tell me about Giga Bowser?"  
Bario looked a little surprised by the request, but then answered.

"Well, Giga Bowser is an incredibly powerful creature. He's known as Master Hand's Right Arm; since Master Hand IS the Right Hand, and Crazy Hand is the Left Hand…it's complicated. Anyways, Giga Bowser has several elemental attacks, and is fond of working with Mewtwo, another villain who works for Master Hand, and Ganondorf, a character who Link has done battle with multiple times in the past. Most have obviously made a connection between him and Bowser…but Bowser repeatedly denies being Giga Bowser…but really…how much can you trust that Princess-napping lizard?"

Diddy's eyes were wide after hearing all this.

"How…how do you know so much Bario?"

"I have very good resources of information," Bario said and it looked like he wasn't going to elaborate.

Diddy sighed.

"Well thanks, Bario, for your advice…but I think I should be alone now…"

"If that's what you want…but I think you should talk to Raichu, I have a feeling you two have more in common than you know," Bario said.

Diddy took a look at Raichu, who was also standing a bit to the side of the main group, he had a smile on but it seemed forced…like he was putting it on for show. There seemed to be a deep underlying sadness just beneath the surface. The rest of the Smashers were either lying on the ground or examining their equipment. Bario shrugged, headed back to the group and went over to Mario. Diddy…after a moment of thought got up and walked over to Raichu. Raichu watched him come over.

"Hey Diddy…what's up?"

"Not much…just coming over to say hi…and to talk to you," Diddy said.

Raichu looked a little surprised by this but seemed willing to hear Diddy out.

"Talk about what?"  
"Well…looking at how you act it seems like you are suffering from a loss…and a recent one. I thought you might want to speak to someone about it. I know how you feel."

At Diddy's words Raichu stiffened.  
"And what makes you think that you can understand how I feel? What makes anyone think they know how it feels to lose someone close to you?!"

"Raichu! Chill! The reason I said that is because…I lost someone too."

Raichu stopped in mid-rant and looked at Diddy in shock.

"Maybe it'll be easier if I just tell you."

Raichu listens as Diddy explains how he lost Dixie. Near the end, the part where he couldn't find her he broke down and cried, as telling the story twice seemed to drain him. Raichu sympathetically patted his back, which makes it the second time someone had done so in five minutes. After he was done Raichu apologized for his overreaction.

"I really am sorry for yelling at you…it's just I'm sick of people pretending they know what it's like to lose someone you care about…someone you're really close to."  
"Well I told you what happened to Dixie…you tell me what happened to you," Diddy said.

"Well…she was more than a girlfriend. I think the correct word would be fiancé…but Pokemon don't get married…they just mate for life. Or at least my kind does. We were in the small village we lived in, just her and me and our families and friends."

We were outside when a swarm of…well, I don't know what they were. They looked like humans but they appeared too be made out of like…wires. Really strange. We tried to stop them and they weren't that hard to kill, a few electric attacks and they went down. But there were so many…soon after they arrived the rest of the people in our village came out, mostly Pikachu's but there were a few baby Pichu's and one or two Raichu families. When they came out the tide started to turn in our favor…until he came."

Mewtwo. The most powerful creature I know…he came, leading more powerful versions of these wire people and they wiped us out. I saw him personally kill her…I tried to stop him but he knocked me to the ground with his psychic powers. He said something about obeying orders before he left and took his army with him. Soon after that I passed out."

When I woke up I found that the village was in ruins and lots of the villagers were dead. Pikachu and Pichu from the Smash tournaments went off to find Mewtwo right before I came here…in fact they are the ones who told me to come to the castle. I vowed to find and kill Mewtwo and I volunteered to guard the castle because I hoped some of the Smashers could help me. Pikachu and Pichu were supposed to find Mewtwo and let me know, so we could take him down…but I wanted to get some help first. All I have left of her…is this. She gave it to me a few days before she died."

As Raichu finished his story he pulled out a shiny pendant from around his neck (his fur keeps it mostly hidden), about the size of a baby's fist. There is a strange symbol that looked like a lightning bolt on it.

"I keep it with me to help me remember her," Raichu said.

"Wow…that's awful. I'll tell you what though…I'll help you kill Mewtwo," Diddy said.

"And I'll help you destroy Giga Bowser," Raichu told him.

The two fighters clasped hands on a friendship borne from pain. They then decided to join the rest of the Smashers as there seemed to be some kind of argument going on between Yoshi and Falco.

"Yoshi…I don't freaking care about your stupid attack!" Falco yelled.

"You will…when I totally PAWN you in the next Smash tournament!"  
"Dude…you're an idiot. And what does Pawn mean anyways?"  
"Oh you're such a noob," Yoshi said, "Pawn…like Pawnage…you know?"  
"Do you mean OWNAGE? Like Owned? Or Powned?" Falco asked.

"Well…uh…Shut up!" Yoshi cleverly said.  
Bario decided to get them to stop.

"Hey! Quit arguing! We were just attacked…and I don't think the Kings were working alone! They were under orders to attack us."  
"Who? Who do you think they were working for?" Diddy asked.

"Well…who is the big bad around here that doesn't have a fondness for Smashers or Mario in particular?" Bario asked.

"Bowser…," Raichu said.

Bowser was one several bad guys who came to the Smasher tournaments. Ganondorf and Mewtwo were the other two, and they were vicious violent fighters. Most of their more powerful abilities were taken away for the fights, to make it fairer…but outside the ring they were steered clear of. They were all bad…but Bowser was very fond of getting into fights outside the arena.

That's how Ness and the Ice Climbers dropped out halfway, as they were too badly beaten to continue battling. After that awful night Mario visited Bowser. No one knows what happened but the next day Bowser was gone too. He went back to his castle. After all…there is a reason Mario is the only person Bowser fears.

"That's right," Bario said, "It was probably Bowser. I think that before he realizes that the Kings have failed we should go to his castle and take him down! Otherwise he'll just keep sending his minions at us. There is a warp pipe not to far away from here that according to Mario should take us right outside his castle."   
Falco raised his hand.

"We're not in school. Falco you don't have raise your hand. What do you want?" Bario asked.

"Uh…what's a school? Is it edible?" Falco inquired.

"…Never mind. Just ask your question," Bario said.

"Oh…well two things. First…why did we get healed after killing the Kings?"  
At that question the other Smashers started saying how they agreed, that was really weird. After a minute of them interrupting each other and arguing about their various theories Bario took the floor again.

"SILENCE!"

There was silence.

"Geez…if we can't get along with one another how are we supposed to beat Bowser? Honestly people. I think a possible reason that we all got healed is because after beings of such power got killed that energy got released and somehow…we absorbed it and that healed us. I have a feeling that will happen to us when we fight other things and I think it might happen if we beat a lot of little enemies as well.

"Uh…thanks for answering my question…but I have another one. What's up with Meta?" Falco asked.

Everyone turned and looked at Meta-Knight. He had stumbled to his feet and was now wandering around mumbling to himself.  
"Um…I don't know," Bario said.

Mario jumped over to Meta. They were too far away for their conversation to be heard…but after a second Mario looked very happy and threw Meta over. Meta used his wings and floated safely to the ground. Everyone looked at him as Mario hopped back. Meta-Knight raised one hand into the air and said…

"Cheese is a government conspiracy!"  
He then proceeded to giggle maniacally.  
"What happened to him?" Raichu asked.

"If I had to say…the blow to the head must have knocked his brains around…although I'm not to sure where his brains ARE," Bario said.

"Pudding is a tasty beverage!" Meta yelled.

"I think he's broken," Yoshi said.

"Well…although he seems pretty random I think he'll still fight, so I can guess he can stay," Bario said.

"You mean we're not going to try and fix him?" Diddy asked.

"I'm no brain surgeon! And if you mean hit him on the head again…well…all that would do is cause more damage. No…I think the best thing to do will be to leave him alone," Bario said.

The other Smashers reluctantly agreed. They decided they had relaxed long enough and went to the warp pipe. It was next to a patch of flowers by the side of Peach's Castle. They all jumped in and were quickly warped near a massive bridge leading to two humongous doors laden with chains and locks…that for the moment appeared to be unlatched.

Bowser's castle loomed high above them, made entirely out of gray stone…however it didn't appear to have multiple floors…rather the way the windows were set up made it appear as though it had one floor with the ceiling fifty feet high. Beneath the bridge was a bubbling pool of lave. The Smashers gulped collectively and began to cross the bridge. Just before they reached the doors Bario cleared his throat.

"Now guys…I have a feeling Bowser will be ready for us…so expect anything when we open that door…"

Mario, Link and Diddy all pushed against the doors. They creaked open revealing darkness…they couldn't see more than a few feet in the room. All the Smashers took a step inside. As soon as they were all in, the door slammed shut, plunging them into blackness. Raichu and Falco spun around to try and open the door…but there was no way to open it from the inside. A high-pitched laughing could be heard as one by one the torches on the wall flickered to life…

(Author's Note: Yes, yes I know. No action whatsoever in this chapter. I'm sorry! I used this chapter to advance the plot…but don't worry it won't happen again. Everything else will be super cool and exciting. Anyways review and let me know how my writing is! This is my first big actiony story and I want to know if I'm doing a good job! REVIEW…please?)


	4. Battling Babies or a Baby…yeah…

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Four: Battling Babies...or a Baby…yeah…**

As the torches flickered to life the Smashers got into fighting stances, preparing for anything that was there. The room was dungeon like, with grey stone and a high ceiling, maybe fifty feet high. The torches slowly revealed what was in the room and the Smashers were a bit surprised…There were about thirty Shy Guys…and there appeared to be something else farther back in the room but the torches had temporarily stopped.

"Oh great…more random enemies. What are these guys?" Falco asked.

"Those are Shy Guys, relatively weak enemies but definitely stronger then Boos, Goombas or Bob-ombs…this could be a little difficult," Bario said.

Shy Guys. They were first met by Mario early in his adventures in a strange dream world called Sub-Con (subconscious) Ever since then they have somehow proliferated into the outside world and they are now quite common. They are short, about three feet tall. They have very small arms and legs, and wear large white masks with circular black holes for eyes and mouths. They have cloaks that cover their entire body, which can be in many different colors, so no one has ever actually seen a Shy Guy's actual self before…hence the name "Shy Guy". While small, they are a bit more prepared for combat then Goombas or Boos.

The thirty Shy Guys were arranged in a thick line…and it looked like they were protecting something…or someone. The high-pitched laugh echoed again as the torches finished lighting up the room…and at the back of the room was…

"Wow Bowser…you shrunk!" Yoshi said.

"I did not shrink!" screamed the strange creature at the back of the room, "I am Baby Bowser!"

Baby Bowser. Apparently the form of Bowser when he was a baby (although he must not be a baby as a baby doesn't have coherent speech or coordinated movements so technically he must be like…a kid. But Baby Bowser sounds better then Little Kid Bowser…so…yeah.) He is about the size of the Shy Guys, but is a little thicker, and is turtle-like with a shell that has several short spikes on the back and light colored skin and dark orange/red hair that was tied in a short ponytail behind him. He has a white neckerchief looking thing tied around his neck. He has short legs and small clawed hands…but he seemed pretty feisty and he looked like he could put up quite a fight.

"Yeah…how is that possible?" Bario asked.

"How is what possible?!" Baby Bowser demanded in his annoyingly high-pitched voice.

"How exactly can you exist now if you're Bowser from a few decades ago?" Bario asked.

"Isn't it obvious? Bowser obviously used some sort of time machine to bring me here so I could fight you!" Baby Bowser said.

All the Smashers stared at Baby Bowser in shock. After a few seconds Meta-Knight broke the silence.

"We should build an army of Kittens!"

"What's wrong with him?!" Baby Bowser asked.

"Apparently the same thing that's wrong with Bowser!" Bario exclaimed.

"What do you mean?!" Baby Bowser angrily asked.

Raichu decided to take this moment to speak.

"If he has a time machine…why doesn't he use it to go back in time and like…kill Mario or stop bad things from happening to him?"  
Baby Bowser was at a loss for words.

"Crud! I can't find any good words to say! Uh…um…Attack Shy Guys!"

At his command the Shy Guys wordlessly charged forward.

"Oh shoot! I forgot to get ammo for my peanut guns!" Diddy shouted.  
"It's too late for that now! Fight!" Bario told them.

Mario of course was in the front lines as he dashed forward and ducked under a diving Shy Guy. As the creature tried to turn around Mario set it aflame. Three others diverted their attack at the other Smashers to take on Mario…

Meanwhile the other twenty-six Shy Guys suddenly stopped in front of the nine Smashers.

"Uh…what are they doing?" Falco asked.

The Shy Guys raised their hands in unison. There was a twinkle of light and a "bing" sound. They then dashed forward and flipped through the air at the Smashers, three to a Smasher (Except for Kirby, there was only two attacking him) All the Smashers managed to dodge, except for Samus who was hit a glancing blow and Raichu who was knocked to the ground, but not severely harmed. After a second to recover from the acrobatic assault the Smashers attacked!

Mario noticed that he was essentially alone with the three Shy Guys. There were no Smashers within 15 feet of him…so he decided to utilize one of his more powerful attacks. The Mario Tornado! He stuck his arms out as the Shy Guys tried to tackle him and he started spinning very fast. The Shy Guys were caught by his rapidly spinning arms and were brutally knocked around, but the force of the spinning Mario was so great that they were actually stuck to him! Eventually a small whirlwind was created and Mario stopped, causing the Shy Guys to be flung in the air. They came crashing down hard. One was quite obviously dead what with the weird angle the head was at…but the other two seemed to have been cushioned a bit by their deceased buddy and it looked like they had some fight left…Mario hefted his hammer…

Bario ducked a Shy Guy attack and stabbed it while Yoshi and Kirby were doing a good job of consuming their enemies and Falco dashed around, attacking a Shy Guy quickly and then using his Falco Phantasm to escape before it retaliated. Bario also noticed Meta-Knight fighting quite well as he repeatedly was stabbing his three foes and parrying their attacks. That was about all Bario could see before the two Shy Guys attacking him did another mindless charge.

Baby Bowser looked worried as the Smashers seemed able to handle his army quite easily…but he planned for that and he had something quite special up his sleeve, just in case…and he thought to himself if five more Shy Guys die…then he would use his secret weapon.

Mario smacked a Shy Guy into a wall, incapacitating it and then as the other dived for him he grabbed it and threw it at one attacking Bario. Mario then dived into the main fray in order to assist the Smashers. Link used his Hookshot to grab a Shy Guy that was trying to sneak up on him and then he stabbed it. Samus used her charge shots to blow away the enemies and Diddy wielded his tail with impressive accuracy and power. Raichu moved around the not so speedy Shy Guys and blasted them with electricity. Soon there were only twenty Shy Guys left, and the ones that were left didn't look to great.

Baby Bowser decided that if he was going to use his secret weapon it would be now…or never. He pulled a long yellow wand with a shiny crystal in it. He called to his Shy Guys.

"Halt! Back up!"

The fighting stopped as the Smashers, in surprise, let the Shy Guys get about ten feet away from them, in a large cluster. The Smashers looked at Baby Bowser in confusion…was he letting them go? Then Mario saw the wand. He tried to get to Baby Bowser, but he only took a step before Baby Bowser let loose a fine green mist from the wand which traveled to the Smashers, encircled them…and they began to shrink…

"Gwa ha ha!" Baby Bowser cackled, "I borrowed this from my head Magikoopa, Kamek! He taught me how to use this spell…and it will be the end of you!"  
"What the heck is happening?!" Falco demanded.

"We're shrinking," Bario said in a small voice.  
"OH NOOOOOOOOOO!" Mario cried.

After a few seconds the Smashers were only a few inches tall…depending on their original height. They shrunk to a twelfth of their base size, meaning if they were six feet tall before…now they are six INCHES tall. The Shy Guys towered over them and even the stoic Link looked afraid. The massive dungeon like room was big before…but now…it was unbelievably vast. They could barely see Baby Bowser.

"Well guys…it was great but I think this might be it…," Bario said. He seemed quite bitter as if he had more planned with his life then to die as a six inch tall person by being crushed by a Shy Guy.   
Mario however seemed to have no desire to die and he shot off several fireballs at the Shy Guys. Although the size of sparks, that's all it takes to light something on fire and soon two Shy Guys were running around burning up. The eighteen Shy Guys not on fire avoided their flammable comrades and moved to crush the small fighters. The Smashers dodged and attacked but their attacks were way too ineffective and the Shy Guys easily batted them around. Kirby took off…

"Darn it Kirby! Don't be a coward!" Falco yelled as Kirby ran to opposite end of the room…towards Baby Bowser. It looked like it might take him a while to get there…

A Shy Guy then fell over as Diddy hit it from behind causing the strange creature to lose its balance…and it fell.  
Diddy called out to the other Smashers "Hey! They have really bad balance! If you can knock them down…we can take them out!"

The Smashers attacked with more ferocity as they heard this new information, however the only attacks that really seemed to be doing any damage was Mario's fireballs and Raichu's electric shocks as he jumped from Shy Guy to Shy Guy shocking it repeatedly before jumping to the next. Even that attack wasn't that effective as his shocks were noticeably weaker.  
Baby Bowser was quite upset. Although he had successfully shrunken the Smashers they were still fighting hard and fourteen Shy Guys were all that remained. He decided to use the other technique that Kamek had taught him. He focused on the wand and a big ball of energy shot out at what he hoped was a Smasher. It was hard to see, as they were so tiny!

The ball landed and exploded right on a Smasher, killing three Shy Guys and blowing everyone else several feet away. The other Smashers shakily got to their miniature feet…however one Smasher would never rise to his feet again.

"What was that?!" Diddy yelled to Bario.

"I have no idea! But whatever it was…it was big, and I would check to see if everyone is okay…but there is Shy Guy coming right for us!" Bario shouted as he and Diddy dodged the attacking Shy Guy.

Baby Bowser smiled as he saw the damage his blast did. So what if he took out some Shy Guys? That attack was way more useful then any of them! He was going to use it again when he was hit by something pretty hard in the foot. He yelped in pain and surprise and looked around for what hit him. Suddenly he felt something stab him in the tail. He spun around, quite frightened but saw nothing…but he heard a strange noise and looked down…

Meta-Knight flew over the wild swings of a Shy Guy and sliced the mask it wore in two. Suddenly the fighting ceased as everyone, Shy Guy and Smasher watched as the mask slowly fell…finally revealing what is hidden behind a Shy Guy's mask…the thing behind it was…another mask. Exactly the same. Completely identical. No discernible difference whatsoever.

"Weirdo's," Falco said.

The fighting quickly started back up, as they realized how very strange these Shy Guys were.

Baby Bowser looked down…and saw that the thing that had attacked him was…the three inch tall Kirby.

"Grr…small scum! Die!" Baby Bowser said as he swung his wand down hard at Kirby. Kirby rolled out of the way and the wand slammed into the ground…shattering the crystal.

"Whoops," Baby Bowser said with a tinge of embarrassment.

The Smashers were surrounded with a green glow as they grew back to their original size. The Shy Guys started to try to run, but the newly resized Smashers quickly caught up to them and in their own ways, annihilated them. However as the last Shy Guy fell, Bario noticed something that wasn't good…

"No!" Baby Bowser screeched in dismay, "My master plan! Ruined! DIE YOU STUPID PINK THING!"

Baby Bowser let loose a blast of fire at Kirby. Kirby was caught off guard and was unable to block or avoid it and was hurt quite bad. He pulled out his Cutter and slammed it into the ground creating a tall blue shockwave that slammed into Baby Bowser, causing him to be damaged. That did not deter his wrath though as he slid into his shell and spun at Kirby. Kirby tried to smack him with his hammer but was to slow and was whacked several feet from the force of Baby Bowser's blow. As Kirby flew through the air Baby Bowser shot another fireball at him, causing even more damage. Kirby suddenly turned into a rock and fell straight down to the ground.

"Huh? What kind of strange move is that?" Baby Bowser wondered as he walked closer to the rock that was Kirby.

As soon as he was right next to the rock Kirby morphed back into himself and caught Baby Bowser in a flurry of punches, finishing it off with a massive kick that knocked him into one of the chamber's walls.

"Grr…I will not lose to a creature the color of cotton candy! I shall reveal…my final weapon!" Baby Bowser yelled as he pulled out a…hammer?!  
Yes. Baby Bowser held a black hammer aloft. It was smaller then Kirby's (About the size of Mario's, which is two feet long, compared to Kirby's four foot one) but it looked metallic, like Mario's and might stand a chance against Kirby's thick wooden hammer. Kirby drew his and with a remarkable strength lifted it over his head and charged for Baby Bowser. Baby Bowser raised his up and met Kirby's. The two hammers made a loud clunk sound as they impacted. Both combatants glared at each other as they pushed on the hammers trying to overpower one another. Baby Bowser grinned at Kirby.

"Come on you weakling, is that the best you got? I will CRUSH YOU!"

Baby Bowser let loose another ball of fire but Kirby was expecting it and inhaled it with his mighty suction powers.

"Wha?!" Baby Bowser said in alarm as he was unaware of that power.

Kirby then let out the ball of fire right at Baby Bowser. He jumped to the side, but was then hit by Kirby's hammer and sent flying again. Baby Bowser barely got to his feet. He took several steps forward and Kirby prepared to hit him in the side with his hammer. In a surprising burst of strength Baby Bowser dashed forward and jumped over Kirby's swing and then threw his hammer down, which although missed Kirby, it did hit Kirby's hammer, causing him to lose his grip on it.  
"Heh! Now you're without a weapon!" Baby Bowser said with glee.

Kirby however proved him wrong by pulling out…his Cutter. He stuck it underneath Baby Bowser and shot up in the air, repeatedly stabbing him.

"OW! Stop it you big Meanie!" Baby Bowser pleaded.

Kirby showed no mercy. At the top of Kirby's jump he moved the Cutter from under Baby Bowser to over him and then sliced down, hitting him very hard (For some reason the Cutter is actually rather blunt, so it is more like a pointy club then a sword.) and causing Baby Bowser to be flung into the ground. Kirby wasn't done yet though. As Baby Bowser struggled to get to his feet Kirby slammed into the ground with his Cutter, hitting Baby Bowser at point-blank range with the shockwave. He flew over to the other Smashers as he gave one last groan…and exploded showering them all with healing powers…and stuff. Kirby grabbed his hammer and spun around while saying…

"YAY!"

However Kirby soon noticed that the other Smashers did not share his enthusiasm, as they were all huddled around something lying on the floor. Kirby walked over, curious as to what they were looking at…and when he saw what it was he gasped in surprise and horror.

"Well…he was annoying," Falco said.

"Yeah…but he tried. And he did defeat one of the King's, so at least he wasn't entirely useless," Bario said.

"At least he died in his homeland," Diddy said,"Rather then in a distant world, like most of us are."

"Poor Mario," Raichu said with a tear in his eye.

Mario was lying on the ground…holding Yoshi's blackened body.

"OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"  
"It's okay Mario…it's okay, Geez no wonder he's upset, him and Yoshi have been pals for almost forever," Bario said.

"Yeah…but on the bright side at least now he won't babble on about his 'Ultimate Attack!' Man was that annoying!" Falco said.

"Falco!" Raichu said a little angrily, "Show some respect!"

"No wait…Falco makes a good point, Yoshi WAS annoying," Bario stated.  
Yoshi slowly crumbled into dust and Mario stood up with anger in his eyes. The door to the next chamber had been revealed with the defeat of Baby Bowser and Mario ran for it. The rest of the crew soon followed. Diddy however was kind of lagging, as was Meta so Bario stopped.

"Diddy? You okay?"  
"Yeah I'm fine…although I feel bad about Yoshi… I feel bad about not being to useful. The things I really wish I had was ammo for my guns-"

As soon as he said that, Meta pulled out a small box.

"Tasty chicken appendix it is!" he said.

"Ah! Meta's got it!" Diddy said in excitement.

Diddy grabbed it and hid it where his guns were.

"What exactly was that?" Bario asked.

"That was not only ammunition for my guns…but also a peanut maker. It MAKES ammunition! It takes a while, but it essentially means I'll never run out! Funky made it for me just before I left."

"Cool…but we really should get going…" Bario said.

Diddy agreed and they went to the door, with Meta following. However what was in the next massive chamber made Baby Bowser look like a walk in the park…


	5. Mystical, Manic, Magic Mayhem!

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Five: Mystical, Manic, Magic Mayhem!**

Following the defeat of the childish Baby Bowser and the death of the exceedingly annoying Yoshi, the nine remaining Smashers charged into the next room of Bowser's castle, lead by a strangely furious Mario.

Inside the next chamber, which was mostly identical to the first as in it was a massive dungeon like place with torches high on the fifty foot tall walls. However this chamber had four holes in the floor at each corner of the room. The holes were about four feet long and wide, they were perfect squares and they led to a ten-foot drop that ended abruptly in a bubbling pool of lava.

The Smashers all entered on the left side of the rectangular chamber that was about one hundred feet long and fifty feet wide. At the other end of the room were several groups of Koopas draped in long robes that covered their entire bodies. They also had thick glasses on and each one carried a wand, similar to the one Baby Bowser used, but smaller. Each of these Magikoopas had different colored cloaks. The colors were: Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, Gray and White. Behind them were seven large Koopas, bigger then the average size but smaller then Bowser.

"Oh…dear…this isn't good," Bario said quietly.

"What? What isn't good?" Raichu asked,"What are those things?"

The Smashers lined up but kept their ears open as they were listening to Bario's description.

"Well…the cloaked Koopas are a powerful brand of Koopas called Magikoopas, meaning they're proficient in magic abilities. Each one has an attack where they can shoot from their wands a blast of magic but the different colored robes also mean that they have different specialties. Red means they can cast a spell on themselves or allies that temporarily increases attack…Green is the same only for defense, Yellow means they can create electrical fields around allies, White means they can heal, Gray means they can become invisible like Boos and Blue means they can do all that with more power."

As for the Koopas behind them, those are the Koopalings, Bowser's children. Their names are Larry, Morton, Wendy, Iggy, Roy, Lemmy and Ludwig. They are definitely tougher then normal Koopas, but I'm not to sure what they can do," as Bario named off the Koopalings he also pointed to each one so the Smashers would know who they are.  
The Smashers were not surprised by Bario's incredible amount of knowledge as he apparently had studied about practically every enemy…ever.

There were five groups of six Magikoopas, each group had all six types in them and they were spaced around the Koopalings. The largest and oldest Koopaling, the one called Ludwig had large tufts of blue hair sticking out of the side of his head and a kind of crazy grin. He had the classic spiked shell that most strong Koopas had. Ludwig spoke.

"GWA HA HA! You fools…you may have killed my father's youthful incarnation…although if you killed him…then that means my dad is dead…meaning that we never existed and…AAAHHHH! Too much thinking!"

"Told you time-traveling was dumb!" shouted Larry, the youngest and smallest, with a mohawk of blue hair.

"Silence!" Ludwig shouted back, "That's unimportant! What IS important is taking out these Smashers…or at least that's what dad says…anyways Magikoopas…ATTACK!"

At his command the Magikoopas raised their wands and walked forward. They then proceeded to shoot off magical spell blasts at the Smashers. The attack spell they cast was a spinning multi-colored combination of a triangle, circle and square, also known as the "Random Geometric Shapes" attack. Thirty of these powerful spells flew toward the Smashers.

"MOVE!" Bario ordered the other Smashers.

They all quickly dodged the assault although the command wasn't necessary for Mario as he rolled under the attack, pulled out his hammer and charged for the Magikoopas.

The Yellow ones cast electrical spells on their nearby allies, the Greens powered up the other Magikoopas defense while the Reds increased their attack. The Grays, Blues and Whites all backed off and let the other fifteen do battle.

Mario flung his hammer at an electrified Red one, hitting it in the head and knocking it out of the fight. He shot a fireball at one of the Green ones as he jumped over and retrieved his hammer but a Yellow one hit him with a spell, temporarily knocking him down.

"Help him!" Bario commanded.

The other Smashers barely noticed that Bario was slowly becoming the leader of their group…and they didn't care as they dashed forward to assist Mario.  
"Ah…yes…the cheese is strong with you!" Meta declared as he sliced a Green Magikoopa.

Diddy ducked a random spell and smacked a Magikoopa with his tail while shooting at two other ones with his peanut guns. Link and Samus of course were cutting and shooting, complementing each other well while Kirby smashed and Bario slashed.

Raichu was also dashing and shocking and the Smashers were becoming an excellent team. Some of them were hit and the powered up Magikoopas were pretty tough…but Raichu quite easily dealt with the Magikoopas…actually absorbing the electrical field around some of them and using it to increase his power.

Soon most of the Red, Green and Yellow Magikoopa were incapacitated. However the other fifteen seemed remarkably calm while the Koopalings just seemed to be enjoying the show as they leaned on the wall.

"Something's wrong…," Falco said.

Suddenly the White Magikoopas cast their healing magic on their fallen friends and they were all restored to tip-top fighting shape.

"That's not good," Raichu said.

"Not good? That is so not fair!" Falco responded

"Take out the White ones first! Otherwise we'll never beat the rest!" Bario yelled.

Mario, Meta and Link ran to the White Magikoopas. The Magikoopas shot their spell blasts at them but the three fighters evaded them. The Blue Magikoopas seemed to not care as they just walked over to the Koopalings. The Gray ones however turned themselves invisible.  
"YAH!" Link screamed as he stabbed at a White Magikoopa as soon as he was in range.

The creature took the stab head on and was killed. However before Link could repeat the process an invisible Magikoopa hit him with a spell blast.

"Yes! Let the pointiness flow through you!" Meta said as he sliced and killed another White Magikoopa.

However he was also blasted by a Gray one, knocking the slightly insanified Smasher down.

Mario slammed a White Magikoopa with his hammer, also killing the surprisingly weak creature. Two of the six Gray Magikoopas tried to blast him, but he reflected their attacks with his cape. They were hit and knocked to the ground, losing control of their invisibility. He then proceeded to smash them into itty bitty little pieces with his hammer.

Meanwhile Bario and the other five Smashers were battling with the rejuvenated Yellow, Red and Green Magikoopas. Bario swung his sword and managed to use it to block a magic spell. He then jumped at a Green Magikoopa and sliced it with so much force that even though it had powered up defense it was cut in half.  
"Heh…take that!" he said, as he prepared to kill another one.

Diddy used his jetpack to fly over three Magikoopas that were attempting to blast him. Their spells missed him and hit each other. He then used his peanut gun to take them out. However another Magikoopa managed to get behind him and shot him from behind hitting him in the head. He fell to the ground and hit hard, barely able to stay conscious as the Red Magikoopa moved in for the kill…

Raichu vaporized a Magikoopa with a more powerful electric attack he called Thunderbolt…but it took a bit out of him and he took a second to catch his breath. He noticed Diddy lying on the ground, the Magikoopa about to attack him and a surprising rage flowed through him. He already lost his fiancé and Yoshi…he wasn't going to lose another friend. He dashed super fast at the Magikoopa and hit it from behind, knocking it over. As it struggled to get up he blasted it with his Thunderbolt and this time it stayed down.

Kirby and Falco were now taking turns keeping the Magikoopas back as they stood back to back. Falco shot them and when they tried to blast him, he activated his Reflector sending the attack back. Somehow Kirby managed to eat a Magikoopa and he was using their basic spell to keep them back…

Samus dodged one of the attacks and dismissively sent a missile at a Magikoopa. It was blown up, as were two more right after that by more missiles. A powered up Magikoopa hit her with a spell, causing more damage then she was expecting so she rolled into her ball form to escape temporarily.

Link got up to his feet and angrily used his spin attack, by whirling his sword around him at a high speed catching two of the Gray Magikoopas and a White one which cut them severely, causing them to die. He then shot out his Hookshot and grabbed one of the last White Magikoopas and threw it up in the air. As it came down he sliced it three times in the air and it fell down and lay unmoving.

Meta skillfully dodged the spell assault of the last two Gray Magikoopas and then, now knowing where they were he flew over and slashed them, quickly causing them to cease living. The last White Magikoopa tried to heal his allies but they were too DEAD for it to work and Meta Knight soon ended his life.

"Another day…another fantastic Doughnut!" he yelled as he spun his sword around.

Bario finished off the last Red Magikoopa as Raichu tried to help Diddy stand up.

"Thanks…for saving me," Diddy slowly said.

"It was nothing! I couldn't just leave you there!" Raichu told him, "Are you okay?"  
"I'm good, just stunned…I can stand," Diddy told him.

While leaning on Raichu Diddy managed to get up.

"Just give me a second to get my bearings back and I'll be okay," Diddy said.

Mario, Meta and Link rejoined the other Smashers and together they faced the Koopalings and the six Blue Magikoopas.

"Alright you scum…bring it!" Falco said to the Koopalings.

Wendy, the only female Koopaling, was about Larry's size but bald, although she wore a red polka dotted bow to try and pretend that she wasn't bald, just giggled.

"Heh…that funny bird wants to fight…oh well…kill them," she told the Magikoopas.

They raised their wands. Expecting another spell attack the Smashers were surprised as the Magikoopas cast a Power up and Defense up on themselves…and then became invisible.

"Samus! Use your Echo Visor!" Bario said.

Samus nodded but before she could get it activated the Blue Magikoopas shot six Spell Blasts at her. She tried to dodge, but they were to fast and the strong attacks slammed into her, knocking her unconscious.

"That isn't good," Diddy said as he finally looked ready to fight again.

The powered up Blues then tried to do the same thing to Bario, but Mario jumped in the way and reflected with his cape, somehow the Blue Magikoopas managed to avoid their own reflected attacks. Bario however noticed where one of the spells came from and dashed forward and slashed in that general area, killing one of the Blues. Mario shot off several fireballs that impacted on all five of the Blue Magikoopa but, using superior magic skills they managed to prevent any damage from being done. However that caused them to lose control of their invisibility.

Diddy ran at one shooting repeatedly with his peanut gun and then beated it into submission with his tail. The four remaining Magikoopas, knowing they couldn't possibly win went on an all out freak-out attack, shooting spell after spell at the Smashers. However Falco used his Reflector while Link blocked with his shield and Mario utilized his cape. The others just dodged except of course for unconscious Samus. With their own attacks reflected back the Blue Magikoopas eventually died. The Koopalings seemed quite upset by this.

"What?! Shoot! Now we'll have to fight you. Fighting is SO boring!" said Lemmy, a smallish Koopaling with eyes that pointed in different directions and spiky rainbow colored hair. He was riding on top of a green ball with yellow stars, which actually doubled his height.

"Alright! I'm going to beat these weaklings UP!" shouted Roy, the second largest Koopaling, with a red bald head, and sunglasses that he figured made him look cool.

"Oh…I am REALLY not ready for this," moaned Iggy, another small Koopaling with spiky rainbow hair and thick glasses.

"Fighting is fun! I like fighting! La la la! Pudding is cool…but not as cool as me because…," rambled Morton, a Koopaling who looked very similar to Roy, but he was a little smaller and had a white bald head.

"Fine! We'll fight you and win!" Bario claimed.

"Excellent! One Koopaling for each Smasher!" Ludwig said with evil joy, as Samus was still unconscious.

"Obviously you can't count! There are eight of us to only seven of you!" Raichu said.

"You're not counting THAT guy are you?" Larry inquired as he pointed at Meta who was standing over by the entrance not moving. The Smashers looked at him for several seconds until he just fell over for no reason.  
"Uh…okay one to one sounds good," Bario said.

The Smashers lined up figuring that one-to-one matches would probably be more organized then a crazy brawl. Kirby faced Roy; Link challenged Morton, Falco to Lemmy, Wendy to Diddy, Iggy to Raichu, Bario to Larry and Mario prepared to battle Ludwig.

"Gwa ha ha! You foolish Smashers won't be able to-AGH!" Ludwig started to say before Mario charged at him. The battle was on!

Ludwig side-stepped Mario's mad charge, but Mario was a clever plumber and he quickly stopped and turned around. As the other fighters spread out through the massive room, avoiding Samus who was still unconscious, Meta who was kind of creepy and the four pools of lava Mario pulled out his hammer as Ludwig shot a fireball at him. Mario deflected it back with his hammer but Ludwig just took the blow without any visible reaction. Mario was pretty surprised as he stopped his attack for a second.

"Gwa ha ha! I have learned since previous battles and toughened up; I am completely fire resistant Mario! GWA HA HA!" Ludwig laughed repeatedly, seemingly not realizing that telling your opponent why the attack was ineffective is really dumb and arrogant.  
It didn't take long though for Mario to renew his hammer powered charge. He ducked under another fireball and swung his hammer into Ludwig's head. Ludwig was obviously experiencing some pain as he winced. It didn't seem to affect his strength though as he let off a powerful clawed swipe that might have taken Mario's head off if he didn't jump over it. Mario came down, expecting to crash into Ludwig's head but with a surprising burst of speed for one so large, Ludwig dodged it. This could be difficult…

Bario avoided Larry's speedy spiky shell, as Larry spun around trying to hit him. Bario side-stepped another pass and then as Larry turned around to do it again Bario smacked him with the flat of his blade. Larry was jostled roughly in his shell and popped out very disoriented. Bario stabbed towards Larry's head but Larry suddenly fell to the ground and swiped at Bario's legs, cutting them with superficial slashes and causing him to fall over…

Kirby avoided a POWERFUL punch from Roy, but then Roy took a tiny hop and his massive girth created a small shockwave when he landed, stunning Kirby. Roy then was able to land one of his punches on the tiny pink puffball and he was sent flying back. He managed to get a hold of himself and he sucked in a large quantity of air, allowing him to float around. He floated over the confused Roy and then became a very heavy rock. He came plummeting down about to slam into Roy's head…but he was stopped abruptly. Confused, it took Kirby a second to realize that his heavy rock form was being held up by Roy. Roy had managed to catch Kirby and, by using incredible strength prevented Kirby from hitting him. Roy then tossed Kirby on the ground, causing him to revert back to normal state as Roy loomed over…

Diddy shot several peanuts at Wendy but she deflected them by going into her shell. As Diddy tried to come up with a new plan, Wendy popped out of her shell and suddenly took off some of the bracelets on her hands and threw them into the air. They quickly became large round circular energy rings.

"That's not good!" Diddy exclaimed as the rings floated over his head.

Wendy made a downward motion with her hands and the two rings floated down…but didn't touch Diddy. He looked around him in confusion as the rings just hovered around him, one at leg height and the other at neck height. Wendy just giggled and made another hand motion…and the rings started to contract. Diddy leaped up right before the rings slammed together, which would have probably killed him. As Diddy fell to the ground, preparing to make this a hand-to-tail combat Wendy summoned some pretty solid candy rings, although they weren't glowing energy things…they were probably going to hurt. She shot three at Diddy…

Lemmy skillfully rolled around on his ball avoiding Falco's shots. Falco activated the Fire Falco device and he was surrounded by flames. Using the second feature of his fancy technology he shot off at an extremely high speed. However before he made contact with Lemmy he was hit twice by…big bouncy balls? Yes Lemmy was somehow creating big balls like the one he was riding on…and throwing them. However they were much more solid then they looked and this hurt Falco. The Fire Falco attack ended as Falco tried to dodge the attacks…and build up some energy for the Reflector…

Raichu shot an electric ball at Iggy. Iggy was hit and suffered some damage, but he pulled out a wand similar to the Magikoopas and shot off three expanding rings. Raichu ducked under them and ran up to Iggy and shocked him again. Iggy smacked him with the wand but then had to stop and catch his breath…

Link ducked Morton's wild swings as he babbled on about being the best Koopaling. Suddenly Link used his sword to block a punch, severely cutting Morton.  
"AGH! My hand! You cut my hand! That hurts! It is painful! I am in AGONY! Ouch!" Morton yammered.

"YAH!" Link cried as he slammed the distracted Koopa with his shield. He flew back, as Link was pretty strong and slammed into Roy, dragging both of them by a lava pool. They teetered on the edge. Link looked at Kirby and they nodded. Kirby used his Cutter to create a shockwave that caused Morton to bump into Roy again, making the two literally stand on the brink of death. Before they could get their balance Link threw a bomb over by them, which exploded…and knocked both into the pit. Their dying screams brought a stop to all the action as all the combatants looked over to Kirby and Link to see what was going on. Ludwig was the first to figure it out.

"Curse you! You killed our brothers! Koopalings! Go all out! Unleash your supreme attacks to get vengeance for our deceased kin!" Ludwig cried out in a fury.

Before any of the Smashers could do anything the remaining five Koopalings (Except for Iggy as he already has his out) pulled out a wand. Mario charged for Ludwig but Ludwig smacked him with the wand, momentarily knocking him away. Ludwig then gleefully surrounded him and Mario with pipes, by waving the wand. Large green pipes came from the ground and ceiling and formed a circular ring completely cut off from the other fighters.

"Alright Mario…this is it! GWA HA HA!" Ludwig laughed as Mario jumped for him again…

Larry however used his wand not to create pipes…but to summon vines from the ground. Bario hacked and slashed at the rapidly growing plants but Larry just kept them coming. After a bit Bario was trapped by some of these vines and they were slowly squishing him. He appeared defenseless as his sword arm was trapped. However he gave a small smile, which seemed out of place given his current situation.

"Heh…I was hoping to save this for Bowser…but these guys are tougher then I thought," Bario said as he raised one hand above his head...

With Roy dead Kirby looked around and saw that Diddy was closest, so he went over to help him battle Wendy. The three candy rings she had thrown at Diddy were dodged, but now she was using a more dangerous attack…a water blast. She was firing immense blasts of water from her wand, which not only hurt Diddy but also caused him to be knocked towards one of the lava pools.

"Hee hee! You shall suffer the same fate of my brothers you stupid little monkey!" Wendy said.

She fired off a final water blast designed to send Diddy to his doom when Kirby kicked a distracted Wendy, causing the attack to miss by a bit. Seeing a chance Diddy activated his jetpack and flew away from the pool as Wendy threw a candy ring at Kirby which hit him, causing considerable pain…

Lemmy used his wand to fire off the classic three orange expanding rings attack, but Falco decided to use his Reflector (All his devices share the same energy system and it takes awhile to recharge it after using something as draining as Fire Falco) which reflected the attack. Lemmy rolled out of the way and growled at Falco.

"You're a tough little bird…and I hate fighting. It's so annoying! But I'll end this quick! ICE ATTACK!" Lemmy shouted.

He pointed his wand straight at Falco. He then fired a beam of ice at the Smasher. He tried to reflect it but the beam was to powerful and shattered his Reflector. This caused Falco to become dazed and confused as Lemmy prepared to unleash the attack again…

Link saw Raichu struggling against Iggy, who had used his wand to become a fifteen foot tall giant. He stomped around apparently indifferent to the shocking attacks that Raichu was hitting him with and appeared to be only a matter of time until Raichu was squished. So Link pulled out his Bow and shot off an arrow which flew through the air and slammed into Iggy's exposed foot. He gave a slight cry of annoyance and tried to brush it out. This only caused it to be pushed in deeper and it appeared to strike a nerve, making Iggy give out a loud pained noise. He spun around to see his attacker and upon spying Link charged angrily at him. This might be painful…

Ludwig was slammed by the hammer of Mario in the face. However instead of falling down he punched Mario, sending him flying into the pipe wall. While he got back to his feet Ludwig breathed several fireballs which Mario jumped over and then came down in front of Ludwig. Ludwig just grinned and jumped a short hop. When he came down a shockwave was created like Roy's…but Mario having seen the attack before jumped over it and smashed Ludwig again with the hammer. Ludwig appeared to be weakening…

Larry looked at Bario in confusion. Why did he have small smile…and why was he raising one hand above his head? His questions were soon answered as a SECOND sword, exactly the same as the first appeared! He then used it to cut free of the vines. Now wielding two swords Bario ran for Larry. Larry shot a fireball, but Bario used his dual swords to block it and by then he was right there in Larry's face. Larry gave a small moan of fear as Bario looked right into his eyes…and pierced his heart with his second sword. As Larry died he thought that he almost saw a satisfied grin appear on Bario's face…

When Wendy focused all her attention on Kirby she made a big mistake…she forgot about Diddy. He shot at her with his peanut guns and unlike last time she wasn't able to get in her shell fast enough and they hit her, knocking her over. As she fell to the ground she gave an angry protest and then Kirby slammed her hard with his hammer, sending the light weight Koopaling into the lava and her doom. Only three Koopalings left…

As Iggy charged for Link Raichu jumped on his back. He let loose a massive electric attack…but Iggy kept going. Cursing his foolishness Raichu realized that he couldn't hurt the Koopaling through his SHELL! He started to crawl up his back, trying to not let Iggy know he was there.

Iggy tried to punch Link, but he rolled out of the way. What he DID punch though was a bomb that Link cleverly left there. Iggy grabbed his burned and blackened hand and glared daggers at Link. He tried to sweep him with his good hand but Link stabbed it. Iggy let out a cry of rage…until Raichu, managing to get to Iggy's enormous head let loose a powerful attack…and fried Iggy. As he fell to the ground only two Koopalings were left…

Lemmy fired another Ice Attack at Falco. Fortunately he recovered from his dazed state and was able to jump over it. He fired several shots at Lemmy, but they didn't seem to be doing much good. He dodged another of Lemmy's balls…but then a large bluish white ball flew up and slammed into Lemmy. As Lemmy tried to recover numerous missiles flew into him. The Koopaling, not exactly the strongest physically quickly fell to the barrage. Falco looked around wildly trying to find his savior…and saw Samus, conscious and giving him a thumbs-up sign. He smiled and returned the gesture. Only Ludwig remained…

Ludwig growled at Mario and started swiping furiously hoping to cut the powerful plumber. Mario back-flipped away and then threw his hammer at Ludwig. Ludwig temporarily couldn't see as blinding pain shot through him…but Mario could. Mario dashed behind Ludwig, grabbed his hammer and then gripped the eldest Koopaling by the tail. He spun Ludwig around a bit and then let him fly, in a classic throw he utilized many times before, both on Bowser and in the Smash tournaments. He flew through the pipes, shattering a bunch of them and landed in lava pool. The final Koopaling was down. The nine Smashers hooked up as the door to the next area opened. While most went in, (Including Meta who got back to his feet) Diddy stopped Bario.

"Hey! Bario!" he called.

"What?" Bario asked as he put the two swords on a sheathe on his back.

"Where'd you get the second sword?"  
"Oh…well I always had that. I was just planning on keeping it a secret so I could surprise Bowser with it…might as well keep using it now…come on! We should catch up with the others!" Bario said.  
Diddy nodded in agreement and the two Smashers went through the door…to take on their next fearsome foe.

(Author's Note: YAY! Chapter Five is done! This is the longest chapter so far…and hopefully one of the more interesting. I'm planning on this story getting bit by bit more exciting and actiony as it goes on, which is why some enemies seem to die easy now, and I guarantee the last chapter will be AWESOME! YAY Pudding! Or something.


	6. What was the point of that again?

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Six: What was the point of that again?**

Following the defeat of the seven Koopalings and their Magikoopa army the nine surviving Smashers went into the newly revealed door. The chamber was essentially the same as the last, although about two-thirds the size and there weren't any lava pools. The Smashers were prepared for another tough battle…but not what confronted them.

"Who are those losers?" Falco asked.

The Smashers looked at three Koopa's. They had small curving horns, and were about the size of a regular Koopa…four feet…but they were thicker and each of the three creatures had a different color face and body. One was red, one blue and the other green. They also had a small patch of sticking up hair that was the same color as their faces. In front of them were twenty skeletal creatures. They looked like deceased Koopas. Ten were a light grayish color, five were red, three were white and there were two that were black. Each one was essentially just a skeleton, and all had glowing white pupils inside black sockets…except for the black ones, their eyes were red. The Red Koopa suddenly smiled and spun around. The other three started twirling as well.

"Ha ha ha! We are…," Red started as he stopped spinning.

"The incredibly cool and awesome…," Green continued as he stopped.

"Koopa Kids!" Blue finished and stopped spinning as well.

"And you guys are going DOWN!" they all said at the same time.

"Right…should we be frightened?" Diddy asked.

"Uh…well I have heard of the Koopa Kids before but I don't know what exactly, if anything, they can do…but the Bones...them I know quite well," Bario said.

The twenty skeletal Koopas started moving around…like they were getting in a formation. The three Koopa Kids just stayed back and laughed moronically.

"The gray things are called Dull Bones. They are the weakest of the bones and a solid attack will kill them. Or at least kill them again. They can throw bones though so watch out for that."

The red ones are…well Red Bones. They are quite a bit stronger than Dull Bones, and if they are knocked to pieces, unless a magic/elemental attack hits them they will just regenerate. They also throw bones but with a good deal more force. If left alone long enough they can also build Dull Bones out of the bones they create."

The white ones are Dry Bones, which are the same as Red Bones but again, way stronger. They can build more Dry Bones if given the chance. The last two are Dark Bones, the most powerful of all the Bones; they can do everything the others can and more. If given the chance they will build an army of Dry Bones and their attacks are very damaging. Be careful!" Bario said.

The Smashers nodded and got into battle positions, which was a straight, horizontal line facing their foes. The Koopa Kids seemed surprised by Bario's knowledge, but just shrugged and decided to not care. The Bones however were prepared.

The Dull Bones formed a solid line, with the Red Bones behind them curving into an arrow like shape, while the Dry Bones were behind that covering the Dark Bones. The Koopa Kids gave one last laugh before the Dull Bones let loose a volley of bones!

The Smashers all deflected the weak attacks, either with their special abilities (Falco's gun or Mario's fireballs for example), weapons or fists. Samus shot off several missiles, which Diddy, Falco and Link complemented by firing their own ranged attacks. The other five Smashers got behind the ranged attackers, waiting for a lull. There were several bones thrown over, but Mario and Raichu blew them out of the sky with electric balls and fireballs. Suddenly the shooters stopped.

"What's wrong?" Bario asked.

"I'll tell you what's wrong! We just killed all ten of those Dull Bones…and there are eleven of them now! Plus, there's six Dry Bones! What's going on?!" Falco yelled.

"They must be building more! This won't do any good…we need to take out the makers! Guys! Attack!"

All nine charged forward. The more powerful Bones were busy making more helpers while the Dulls just threw bones. The Smashers rolled, jumped or ducked out of the way and soon they were right at the Bones. They were weak melee combatants and quickly the Smashers were tearing through the Red and Dull Bones ranks.

Mario ducked a weak punch from a Dull Bones and then smashed it into dust with his hammer. Link cut off a Red Bones head, while Meta cut a Dull into pieces and Kirby smashed a Red by becoming a rock over it. Raichu fried a Red Bones and Diddy knocked a Dull Bones into bone chunks. Bario wielded his two swords expertly, destroying three of the Dull Bones. However soon all the Red Bones reformed…except for the one Raichu fried…the Dry and Dark Bones just stayed away from the fighting, not doing anything.

"Hey Bario! How do we KILL these guys?!" Diddy asked.

"I told you! We need to hit them with like a magic or an elemental attack!" he told him.

"Hmm?" Link asked while brandishing a bomb. A LIT bomb.

"Uh…I guess that would work-" Bario said as Link threw a bomb at a Red Bones, promptly destroying the creature.

At this the Dull Bones made a charge for Link, but Bario merely sliced two into little chunks while the rest each took out one. Raichu and Mario started firing fireballs and electric balls at the Red Bones, and Link bombed them. Soon all five were gone, as were the Dull Bones. However there were now nine Dry Bones, and still two Dark Bones.

"Crud! They made more! We need to kill these guys!" Raichu yelled.

Bario nodded but as Raichu and the other Smashers ran forward Bario went around the Bones.

"While the Bones are dangerous…I bet the real problem will begin when the Koopa Kids attack, so I'll sneak up on them and remove them from the fight," he said quietly to himself.  
Soon he was ten feet away from Red. He lifted his swords up…and charged! However five feet away from the Koopa Kid he ran into an invisible force field and was flung to the ground. The three Koopa Kids, upon hearing the noise turned around, and quickly figuring out what had happened, started to laugh.

"Ha! We got this shield set up before you Smashers got here so you couldn't get us! It's tied into the Bones, so as long as they're alive…or at least moving cause we guess they aren't alive…so are we!" all three said.

"Dang…I was really hoping to get rid of them. I guess I better help the rest with the Bones then," Bario said, slightly frustrated. He picked himself up from off of the ground and dashed back into the fray.

Mario ducked under a bone toss and then shot a flurry of fireballs at a Dry Bones. Link was hit by a bone but he tossed a bomb right back at the offending Dry Bones. Kirby smashed them into pieces and Falco used his Falco Phantasm to dash up, pummel and then run away. Diddy ducked under a bone and smashed a Dry Bones to pieces, while Samus punched several with her arm cannon, as she was to close to the other Smashers to risk shooting off blasts. Meta of course was doing his classic, fly up, say something random and then slice. For example…

"I am related to a doorknob named CARL!" Meta said as he sliced up a Dry Bones.  
With the concentrated efforts of the Smashers, soon all of the Dry Bones were in pieces and the two Dark Bones were huddling by the Koopa Kid's shield. The Smashers took a step forward but the Dry Bones started to reform. Bones flew back towards each other as the undead creatures rebuilt themselves.  
"Ugh! Why won't they just STAY dead?" Falco demanded.

"Alright…stay back!" Raichu said as he started crackling with electricity.

All the Smashers backed up a bit as Raichu suddenly released an explosion of electricity that flowed across the ground in front of him and vaporized the reforming Bones. It also damaged the Dark Bones, but because of their toughness they stayed alive, the Smashers weren't in the field of fire and the Koopa Kids were unharmed because of their force field.

"Heh…huff…I'll need to take a break now. Guys! Take them out!" Raichu said, obviously quite tired as lay down and quickly passed out.

"Alright! Thanks Raichu! Now…for the Dark Bones!" Bario said.

The Smashers moved forward but the Dark Bones suddenly released a volley of bones. Link was hit by one and was knocked to the ground.

"Geez! These bones look way more painful then the others! Watch out!" Diddy said as he jet-packed up to avoid some bones and fired multiple peanuts at them. While the peanuts didn't destroy the Bones it definitely distracted them and they turned their undead attention to the airborne chimp. Diddy dodged a few bones but soon his jetpack gave out and he fell to the ground. The Dark Bones foolishly focused all their attention on Diddy, so they didn't see Bario run up and slice off their heads. Their pieces scattered all over the place, but they started to reform…

"Quick! Blast them!" Bario said.

Mario and Link nodded and shot off a fireball and bomb respectively. The Dark Bones were annihilated. The Smashers were excited with their new victory…until they heard the noise of the force field disappear, the crackling of energy dissipating, and they realized they weren't done yet…

"Ha ha ha!" Red laughed.

"You fools don't stand a chance against us!" Green told the Smashers.

"Now we shall unleash…our ultimate attack!" Blue said as he and the other two Koopa Kids formed a large triangle around the Smashers who had huddled together.

"Come on! Let's get them! I don't want to wait for them to blast us with something!" Falco shouted as he started to move forward.

Bario however waved at him to keep back.

"Just wait…I have a feeling about this,' Bario said.

Falco grumbled…but he trusted Bario and didn't attack.

"Ha! They fear us!" Red said.

"No more fooling around!" Green told the other two.

"Right! Triforce Mode…Activate!" Blue cried.

At those words Link and Bario looked startled but before they could do anything the Koopa Kids were running around the Smashers, while shouting out "Wisdom, Courage, Power, Fear!" over and over. Soon the Koopa Kids were spinning so fast that they were a blur. The Smashers tried to follow them as they rapidly moved around, but became dizzy and just stopped. Suddenly the Koopa Kids stopped and fell to the ground very out of breath.

"Maybe that was a bad idea," Red said.

"It's just too tiring!" Green responded.

"And I don't think it did anything!" Blue said.

The Koopalings suddenly exploded, and all the Smashers were healed.

"Okay…what was the point of that again?" Diddy asked.

"I guess it was supposed to be a really strong attack…but they used up too much energy on the force field," Bario said.

"Oh…wait they had a force field?" Raichu asked, completely recovered, conscious and walking over to the other Smashers.

"Yeah…I'm just surprised they knew about the Triforce…it's a powerful magical item in Hyrule. No one here, with the exception of Mario since he's familiar with stuff like that, should know about it. It might mean some interaction between worlds…but well, we'll worry about that later. Come on let's go!" Bario said as the door to the next chamber had opened.  
The other Smashers shrugged as little of what he had just said made much sense and followed him into the next room and the next challenge…

(Author's Note: YAY! This chapter is done. And yes I know the ending is anticlimactic, it's supposed to be. There will be plenty of CLIMACTIC moments throughout this story, don't worry. Also I notice that pretty much only people who were in the forum (Except for a few) have left reviews. I know more people have read it then that…Come on! At least let me know what is good or bad so I can fix it! I'd appreciate it!)


	7. Didn’t he die already?

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Seven: Didn't he die already?**

Following the defeat of the frighteningly easy Koopa Kids the Smashers had ran into the next room which was the same as the Koopa Kids room. Inside they were confronted by a creature that looked exactly like Baby Bowser but his neckerchief had a mouth drawn on it and he was carrying a large paint brush that was about three feet long.

"Didn't he die already?" Diddy asked.

"Yeah…I think Kirby killed him," Raichu said.

"Grrr!" growled the miniature Koopa, "I did not die already you big meanies! You killed my daddy…or at least the young part of him and…AGH! My brain hurts!" he said as he clutched his head and made small moaning sounds.

"Bario! Who is that?!" Falco demanded.

"That I believe is Bowser Junior, the eighth and youngest child of Bowser. He has all the classic Koopa moves, sharp claws, shell spins and fireballs…but he also can wield that technologically advanced paintbrush with considerable skill. He uses it mostly to create weak goopy minions, but I believe he can use it with decent melee combat ability. He can also transform into Shadow Mario, which gives him Mario's jumping ability…but not too much else," Bario told the Smashers.

At this Bowser Junior stopped moaning and started laughing.

"Oh! You're a clever one aren't you? But my paintbrush can do so much more than mere goop summoning now…Petey…come forth!" he cried as he made several rapid paintbrush moves and created a glowing paint circle on the floor. Bowser Junior stepped into the circle and vanished.

"What? Where'd he go?" Diddy asked.

Suddenly the glowing multicolored paint started to flow together…it grew taller and taller until it was a good twelve-feet high and as it grew it took on the shape of a strange creature…as color flowed into the beast that was emerging, what it was became immediately apparent. It was a Piranha Plant, but one with tiny legs and medium sized green serrated leaves for "arms". It had a massively oversized head with the classic red and white dots. Its mouth was large and it had numerous yellow flowers around it. The strangest thing was that because of the red and white design around its legs the creature appeared to be wearing a bikini like thing.

"Oh…dear…that's Petey Piranha, one of the more powerful Piranha Plants. It can fire goop from its mouth, which can create goop creatures that explode on contact which creates more goop which creates more creatures and so on. He can also create small tornados and fly with those tiny leaf arms of his. He may have other abilities that I'm not aware of as well…," Bario said.

Before any of the Smashers could respond or attack Petey opened his mouth and a large amount of brownish-white goop shot out and landed on the ground in front of him. Out of the goop formed five goop monsters also known as Goopies. The Goopies started slowly moving toward the Smashers while Petey Piranha flew into the air.

"Samus! Take him down!" Bario yelled.

Samus nodded and started charging up her Power Beam. Link shot several arrows at Petey, who dodged them but at least they kept him distracted. Unfortunately they also made him angry and he spat out another goop pile that landed only ten feet away from the Smashers. Five more Goopies appeared.

"If we don't do something about Petey, that goop will just keep coming! Guys! Take out the Goopies! Samus…FIRE!" Bario commanded.

Samus shot her charged blast but Petey saw her shoot it and dodged. Falco started shooting at Petey and although his shots were weak they kept him distracted while Link shot at him too. Diddy was getting an idea and began firing his peanuts at Petey. While the attacks were weak, they were numerous and Petey was getting hit a lot. He tried to shoot more goop but the shooters quickly fired into his mouth which caused him to close it abruptly and make some weird noises.

"Samus!" Diddy called, "Charge it up again! We'll keep him distracted!  
Samus again charged her Power Beam. Meanwhile the other Smashers had moved forward to keep the Goopies off the shooters. Bario pulled out his swords and sliced a Goopy into tiny pieces…which wasn't very hard as the tiny creature was soft and squishy. Mario slammed one into the ground with his hammer and Kirby just punched and kicked them away. Raichu fried them and Meta well…

"Spiders! Spiders! Spiders are my favorite food!" Meta yelled as he slashed several Goopies.  
However with every Goopy they killed more goop was spattered and Goopies were still coming out of the big goop piles that Petey created as well as the small ones being created by the Goopies.

"Come on Samus…we need to take out Petey!" Bario said.

Bario's command came at a good time. Samus had just finished charging and aimed at the hurt and frantic Petey. Upon hearing Bario Samus fired and this time Petey didn't doge. The massive blast hit him in the side of the head which caused Petey to fall out of the sky and slam into the ground. Petey struggled to get up as Mario shot fireball after fireball at him. Petey began to burn and shot a tornado at Mario. The miniature whirlwind flew towards Mario and the other four Goopy battlers, destroying most of the goop and the Goopies. Mario jumped over it and Raichu quickly dashed out of the way as did Bario but Falco and Kirby were caught in it and swept away a couple feet. Petey then opened his mouth to fire more goop but Mario landed a fireball in his mouth. Petey squealed as the collective damage proved too much for the plant and he burned up from the inside. The other Smashers watched as he crumbled into dust and all the goop oozed away as its creator died.

"So…did we win?" Diddy asked.

"I don't think it's over…," Bario said.

The glowing circle of paint appeared again and Bowser Junior popped out of it.

"Agh! You killed Petey! Curses! Oh well…Gooper should be able to take care of you! Come Minion #2!" Bowser Junior said as he made numerous paint symbols before disappearing again.

"Dang it! He moves so fast!" Raichu said.  
Yet again the symbols and paint flowed together creating a large pointy creature with four tentacles. It was a massive white Blooper! A squid-like being it had a circular mouth and long tentacles that waved about the creature as it looked at them.

"Uh Bario…maybe you could tell us what that squid thing is?" Falco asked.

"Well…that is Gooper Blooper, one of the more powerful of the Goopers, a squid like race with multiple abilities. He can pretty much only attack with his tentacles which extend, but once those are gone he shouldn't be too hard," Bario told them.

"Great! Then all we have to do is attack!" Raichu said as he dashed forward…only to get swatted away by a tentacle.

Gooper Blooper then reached out incredibly far and grabbed Falco with one of his tentacles.

"AAAAAGHHHHHH! Help!" Falco said as Gooper Blooper held Falco in front of itself.

"Grrr! I'm going to shoot it!" Diddy yelled as he pulled out his peanut guns.

Link and Samus nodded and pulled out their respective weapons but before they could fire Bario commanded them to stop.

"STOP! I believe Gooper Blooper is trying to use Falco as a shield! If we attack now we may hit him!"  
The others grumbled a bit but lowered their weapons.

"What? I'm a shield now? I don't want to be a shield! Tell him to let me go! SAVE ME!" Falco yelled as he struggled to free himself.

"Chill! We're coming! Raichu…your electric attacks will probably do major amounts of damage to the Blooper, since he's watery-" Bario started before Raichu interrupted.

"Great! Then I'll take it down!" Raichu said as he ran up to the Blooper.

"No! Raichu if you attack it then you'll damage Falco because he's TOUCHING the Blooper!" Bario yelled at Raichu who stopped and turned around right when Gooper suddenly slammed a tentacle down where Raichu would have been if he kept going.

"Sorry, I was just kind of excited. I like being useful." Raichu said quietly.

"It's fine. Now I was going to say, wait here until we free Falco and then dash up and zap the Gooper Blooper when we back off. Kay?" Bario asked.

The other Smashers all nodded their heads except for Meta who just ran into a nearby wall.

"Planning is great and all…but could you just shut up and rescue me!?" Falco yelled as the Gooper Blooper waved him around.

"Right! Smashers…ATTACK!" Bario ordered. Eight of the nine Smashers ran up to Gooper Blooper and tried to hit him. Gooper used three of his tentacles to bat away Samus and Diddy and tried using Falco as a club on the others.

"AGH! Stop swinging me around!" Falco yelled as Mario barely jumped over him.

Bario and Link both sliced at a tentacle as it was flung at them, immediately slicing through the soft substance. Mario grabbed the third and quickly yanked it off. Gooper looked frightened and pained as it was missing three of its tentacles.

"Great job guys…but you didn't get the one I'M IN!" Falco yelled.

"Shut up! We're trying to save you!" Diddy said as he and Samus got to their feet.

"Right, we're doing good but-" Bario started before Raichu interrupted.

"Hey…guys…the tentacles are doing something WEIRD!"  
"What?!" Bario said as he and several of the other Smashers turned around to look at the tentacles.

They were writhing and shifting and changing. After several seconds of the strange tentacle behavior three new creatures appeared. They were similar to Gooper but smaller and had very short tentacles.

"I didn't know he could do that!" Bario said.

"What?! More enemies?!" Diddy exclaimed.

"Those are Bloopers! We can't have those guys breathing down our necks…Kirby and Meta, take them out!" Bario told them  
"OK!" Kirby said.

"Mmmm…chairs." Meta said.

"Yeah sure…chairs…just kill them or at least cause severe harm to them!" Bario said.

Kirby and Meta nodded and charged for the Bloopers. However the Bloopers fired some ink at them and they both got hit by the small black balls.

"Agh!" Kirby said.

"Tasty muffins!" Meta exclaimed as he shook off the ink and sliced a Blooper in half.

The creature let out a cry and exploded in a puff of ink, which blinded Meta to the second one that tackled him.

Meanwhile Bario, Mario, Link, Diddy and Samus were trying to get a good shot in but Gooper skillfully waved Falco around preventing it from taking any more damage. Bario called all the Smashers around him.

"Alright…we need to get close enough so he can't use Falco as a shield so let's attack from different directions-" Bario started before Gooper Blooper, detecting their plan threw Falco at the five and since they were clustered together it knocked all six down.

"Well that wasn't very smart of you guys!" Falco said.

"Oh be quiet! At least you aren't captured anymore!" Diddy scolded him.

"Ugh…Raichu this is your chance, take him out!" Bario yelled.

"I'm on it!" Raichu said.

Raichu ran past Meta and Kirby who were trying to finish off the Bloopers and hopped over the pile of Smashers who were trying to untangle themselves. Gooper, seeing the attacking mouse swung his last tentacle at him but Raichu met it in midair and clung to it. Gooper, confused that Raichu wasn't flying into a wall had to take a moment to realize where he was.

That moment was all Raichu needed as he then unleashed a powerful electric volley. Gooper shuddered and shaked as volt after volt hammered into it. When the massive Blooper could take no more…he exploded sending Raichu flying into Samus who just managed to get up and knocked her down…again. With their parent dead the regular Bloopers faded away as well.

"Good job Raichu!" Bario said as all the Smashers staggered to their feet.

However before they could celebrate Bowser Junior showed up again, this time on the very end of the arena.

"What!? You killed Gooper Blooper?! That does it! I'm summoning my ultimate minion…Manta Storm!" He said. He made more of those weird paint symbols before disappearing again.

"What? Manta Storm? What's a Manta Storm?" Diddy asked.  
Both Bario and Mario had gone very still as the paint symbols merged and grew.

"Bario? What's wrong?" Raichu inquired.

"If he is bringing out what I think he's bringing out…well…it'll be bad. Real bad," Bario said quietly.

"How bad?" asked Falco.

"Bad like…oh please, oh please, don't hurt me before you vaporize me with electric goo, bad."  
"Oh," Falco said, "What can it do?"

"Manta Storm? You mean besides vaporize you with electric goo? Well let's see…it is completely electrified so it can only be damaged by projectile attacks, it leaves behind a trail of electric green goo, and every time it takes damage it splits in half, creating two smaller Manta Storms. Did I mention the electric goo?" Bario said to him.

"That doesn't sound good," Diddy said.

"Wait…this Manta…is electrical?" Raichu asked.

"Yeah…," Bario said.

"Well that won't affect me! Remember? I'm an electric mouse…I'll just absorb whatever electricity it has and zap it back!"  
"But won't it absorb the electricity you shoot at it?" Diddy asked.

"Oh yeah…," Raichu trailed off.

As the Smashers were talking the paint had slid together creating a massive white manta-shaped silhouette that easily took up a third of the room. But that's all there was. A flat paper-thin Manta thing.

"Is that it?" Raichu asked.

"Yep…get ready guys…this might get bad…remember! Only projectile attacks and don't get close to it, or the goo or you'll get electrocuted!" Bario told them all.

They nodded and watched as Manta Storm slowly moved forward, with only about five feet on the sides of the Manta and its massive size, there wasn't a lot of room. A trail of goop appeared behind it as it slid forward. Link shot several arrows at it, while Samus, Diddy, Falco and Mario all fired their respective weapons and or fireballs.

Manta Storm shuddered from the sheer weight of the assault and it noiselessly separated into two small Manta Storms. These two moved faster and started to slide forward even more. They continued pummeling the creatures as they got closer and closer and they separated again, ten feet from the Smashers, creating FOUR even smaller but still large Manta Storms.

"Great guys…but you need to MOVE!" Bario said as the Manta Storms slid toward the cluster of Smashers.

All of the Smashers dodged and jumped, although Falco landed in some of the goop and was shocked badly and Link brushed up against one of the Mantas and was also shocked. They regrouped and continued firing with Kirby now using his shockwave. The three not firing, Meta, Raichu and Bario stayed behind the shooters trying to stay calm as the Mantas kept separating and separating into smaller and smaller pieces…but they also seemed faster.

The only reason the Smashers weren't completely overrun was because the Mantas seemed largely unfocused and not very aggressive. They mostly just wandered around in the general direction of the Smashers who kept moving and firing…but they were quickly running out of moving room as the Mantas kept laying down their goop and continued to multiply.

"Ugh! Why won't they just DIE?!" Falco yelled.

As if on cue the now dozens upon dozens of Manta Storms suddenly turned bright red, clustered together and charged as one towards the Smashers from the other side of the arena.

"I should have just stayed quiet," Falco said.

"Yeah. You should have," Diddy told him.

"It's not your fault…they do this when they are on the brink of death, their final charge. I hoped to save this…," Bario said.

Falco and Diddy paused from their shooting to look at Bario.  
"Save what?" Falco asked.

"You'll see. Mario! Light my hat!" Bario said, ripping his hat off his head, revealing his medium length dark purple hair.

Mario didn't hesitate. He shot a fireball at the hat, lighting the end. Bario then threw the hat and it landed right in front of the Mantas. They paused for a second in confusion as the flame slowly moved down the hat.

"Bario…you okay? Why'd you light your hat on fire?" Raichu asked.

"Just wait. Stop firing!" he commanded.

The other Smashers, startled, did as he said. The Mantas decided to dismiss the hat as harmless and moved past it when the flame reached the middle of the hat. The following explosion sent all the Smashers careening into the wall. They were otherwise unharmed. The Mantas were completely annihilated and with them gone the goo disappeared as well. After the Smashers recovered the other eight all looked at Bario in shock.

"Okay…do you mind explaining why your hat just EXPLODED?!" Falco demanded.

"Chill!" Bario told him, "It's quite simple really."  
"Simple?" Diddy scoffed, "Yes one's hats often decide to go boom!"

"Look, my hat was loaded with powder…like the ones in powder kegs…," Bario trailed off noting that only Mario and Link seemed to have any idea what he was talking about.

"What's a powder keg?" Raichu asked.

"It's an explosive device in Hyrule. It's mostly used by Gorons…local rock people and it is approximately 10-100 times more powerful then say…Link's bombs. They use it to blow up rocks. I put some in my hat because I figured it might be useful…okay? Any more questions?" Bario asked in a harsh tone of voice. He had liked that hat.

"No…sorry, it's just it was kind of scary when that explosion happened, freaked me…probably all of us out," Falco said as several other Smashers murmured agreement and apologies.

"WHAT?! You defeated Manta Storm as well?! That does it…I'm going to take you guys out myself!" A shrill voice said.  
The Smashers twisted around to look at Bowser Jr. who had appeared near where the hat had exploded (The floor was blackened there.) He had his paintbrush in a fighting stance and looked ready to battle.

The Smashers on the other hand were quite weary. They had taken on three progressively more difficult enemies and a fourth fight was not what they needed. But they correctly figured that Bowser Junior wasn't going to let them take a break and they formed up into a group, with Mario, Raichu and Kirby in the front and Falco, Samus, Link and Diddy in the middle of the group facing Bowser Jr. and the others behind them.

"What are you guys doing? Do I have to come over there? Man…that's so annoying," Bowser Jr. started to say before multiple fireballs, arrows, shockwaves, electric balls, peanuts and missiles flew toward him. He let out a curse and waved his paintbrush around which batted away most of the attacks, except for a peanut that slipped through and hit him on the face.

"Grrr…you guys stink!" Bowser Jr. said as he ran forward, using his paintbrush and some impressive dodging skills to avoid the attacks. Right before he reached the front line he used his brush as a pole vault and flew over the Smashers, landing right behind the row containing Bario and Meta, the only two that don't have any distance attacks. Before any of the Smashers could react Bowser Jr. slammed Meta-Knight with his paintbrush knocking him into Samus and Falco.

"Whee! I love rides!" Meta said.

Bowser Junior then attempted to whack Bario but he caught the paintbrush with a blade.

"Heh…you're fast…but not fast enough!" Bowser Jr. said as shot a blast of fire at Bario, who moved both swords to intercept the blast. However that caused him to lose control over the brush and Bowser Junior knocked him flat.

"Fool…you can't beat me-" Bowser Junior started before a boomerang from Link smacked him in the face.

"What?! Ow! Don't do that-"

"Hammer!" Mario said as he leapt over and punched the paintbrush out of Bowser Junior's hand. He then smashed it with his hammer.

"NOOOOO! My paintbrush! That does it…time for my Shadow Mario form! Hi-ulk!" Bowser Junior made a strange noise as Bario's sword appeared in his neck.

"No. It's over. No more forms, you stupid miniature Bowser…thing," Bario said in a surprisingly cold voice as he removed his blade and sheathed both of his swords. Bowser Junior exploded into pink dust, which washed over the Smashers and gave them a much needed healing. The door to the next area appeared as well. Before entering it though the Smashers gathered outside of it.

"I think that Bowser's up next…I don't believe he has anything left to throw at us," Bario said.

"I certainly hope so, because although we're getting healed all this constant fighting is a little draining," Diddy said.

"Agreed. Let's just go in, and take Bowser out," Raichu asserted.

"All right! We get to take down the big bad guy around here…cool," Falco said.

"Yeah, yeah…'Cool' but you need to be careful! As Mario knows Bowser is tough, and he probably will have some minions with him! With that out of the way…let's finish this!" Bario said.

The other Smashers all nodded and together they entered the door.


	8. An army of pointy turtles, Yippee

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Eight: An army of pointy turtles. Yippee. **

The Smashers go into what they assumed to be the final chamber, the one with Bowser. They were correct about one of those assumptions…

The room they entered in was smaller than the last four massive rooms, but it was still a king-sized area. And speaking of king, on a throne near the back of the forty foot long area sat Bowser, King of the Koopas! He was a large turtle-like creature, basically like all other Koopas only larger. He had two horns on either side of his head, short but powerful arms and legs as well as a brilliant shock of red hair. At the sides of the room were several…things that looked almost like doors. There were six, three on each side of the square room. Bowser glared mockingly at the Smashers as they walked towards him, but they stopped when he started talking, still thirty feet away from the tyrant.

"So you fools made it here. Congratulations." he said in a monotone voice.

"What's wrong Bowser? What happened to your 'Gwa ha ha'? Frightened?" Falco mocked referring to Bowser's laugh that he used whenever he entered or won a battle.

"SILENCE!" Bowser said with such ferocity that all the Smashers froze, "You have killed my Kings, the Koopa Kids and even my baby self. You have destroyed a large number of my forces but even that pales in comparison to the cold-blooded murder of my CHILDREN!" he thundered.

"I'd just like to make a point…uh we were kind of battling in self-defense there and well…it was an uh…hot-blooded murder…," Diddy said, slightly in shock at the sheer rage that was emanating off of Bowser.

"I…DON'T…CARE! They are DEAD! And that is all that matters! Now for payment…YOU shall die!" Bowser said.

"You may be tough Bowser but Mario can usually beat you on his own. What makes you think you stand a chance against all of us?" Bario asked.

Instead of making Bowser nervous all the comment seemed to incite in the monstrous king was a smile.

"You're right…Bario. I don't stand a chance," he said.

"Wha?! How'd you know my name?!" Bario demanded, looking a little shaken.

"You don't think you fools could attack my castle and I wouldn't know who you are? I've been keeping track on you guys with some magic Kamek taught me."

"Fine. But why do you think you can win?" Bario asked, seemingly more in control.

"Simple. There are nine of you…one of me…and thirty of them," Bowser calmly stated.

"Thirty of who…," Falco started before the six doors opened and five Koopas came out of each one. They were heavily armored, with spikes spaced over their backs and head. Five were darker and had glowing red eyes.

"What are those?" Raichu asked.

"Those? Those are Bowser's elite troops. They are the Koopatrols, heavily armored, powerful and well-trained Koopas. They have the ability to focus all of their energy and unleash a freakishly strong attack. The red eyed ones are Dark Koopatrols. They are almost three times as tough as a regular one, making them probably one of if not THE most dangerous creatures in Bowser's army," Bario informed everyone.

"Heh…you're clever, but it won't do you any good when you're crushed between my claws…Koopatrols…ATTACK!" Bowser roared.

The twenty-five regular Koopatrols got into their shells and rolled fast at the Smashers. The Dark Koopatrols hung back, almost as if they were protecting Bowser.

Mario used his cape to suddenly twist a Koopatrol about and this caused it to hit three more Koopatrols. They were spun around and hit each other and eventually crashed into a wall, knocked unconscious.

"Hey! Alright Mario! That was-Agh!" Falco started to say before being whacked by a spinning Koopatrol.

"Pay attention!" Bario yelled as he dodged a Koopatrol. He tried to hit it with his sword but it merely bounced off the armored shell. The Koopatrol kept going for a bit before coming around for another pass.

Raichu dashed to the side of a spinning Koopatrol while Diddy activated his jetpack and flew up. Confused by the sound of the jetpack the Koopatrol popped out, just in time to be pelted with peanuts. Annoyed the Koopatrol brushed at his face and didn't notice Diddy land right in front of him. At least, he didn't notice until Diddy slammed him in the throat with his tail. Then the Koopatrol noticed Diddy, although by that point he was too preoccupied with trying to breathe to care. Soon, he too passed out.

Meanwhile Raichu continuously dodged the charging Koopatrol. His method of attack was simple, but fast and dangerous. Raichu didn't want to get hit even once by this vicious Koopa. He wasn't too sure what to do; after all he was pretty much completely safe in his shell from physical attacks…oh. That's right. Raichu can shoot electricity. Raichu would have slapped himself for not thinking of it earlier, if he wasn't trying to find a good time to do it. He leapt over another attack, which momentarily confused the Koopatrol. Seeing an opportunity he shot an electric wave at the creature which was amplified by the metal armor that it was wearing. It traveled right through the shell and quickly fried the soft turtle inside.

Meta and Kirby sliced and smacked with their sword and hammer. Using teamwork they managed to take three Koopatrols out of the fight. The remaining attacking Koopatrols were giving them some space, trying to figure out how to take them out. Meta was being strangely silent, almost as if something was keeping his attention…

Samus rolled into a ball to try and avoid four Koopatrols that were attempting to bash her. After a bit she noticed that she couldn't outrun them so she decided to be sneaky and dropped several bombs behind her. The first Koopatrol ran over one and it exploded, knocking him into the air. As he came down the second one went under him and the top one was skewered by the other's back spikes. This caused the double Koopatrol stack to fall over and smack the third that wobbled out of control and slammed into the third bomb which sent him back into the other two, causing more spiky stickiness. Alright! However as Samus unrolled to finish them off, she forgot there were FOUR Koopatrols. The fourth one smashed into her knees and caused her to fall down hard. As it dashed away so it could build up enough speed for a finishing run, Samus charged her Power Beam…

Link attempted to slice a Koopatrol while it was in its shell and the same thing that happened to Bario happened to him, the sword shaked and the Koopatrol appeared unharmed. Link managed to get his shield in front of him before the Koopatrol hit, although he almost fell back from the sheer force of the assault. However the Koopatrol, upon hitting the shield bashed its head inside its shell, knocking itself out. Link moved his shield to look at the Koopatrol. Strange…it appeared to have just passed out on its own. Shrugging, he pulled out his boomerang and threw it at the Koopatrols attacking Meta and Kirby.

Falco picked himself off the floor in time to jump over an attacking Koopatrol.

"Oh no you don't! I'm not getting hit again-Agh!" he said as he came down right in the path of the speedily returning Koopatrol. Falco was again knocked over. As the Koopatrol came spinning around again for another pass Falco whipped out his gun and although he was on the ground he still fired some random shots. Luckily one managed to sneak inside the Koopatrols head hole, damaging one of its eyes. The Koopatrol screeched and then flew past Falco, missing by an inch before solidly slamming into the fourth Koopatrol that was attacking Samus.

Samus was surprised by the two KO'd Koopatrols, she was just about to finish the last one with her Charge Shot, which had just gotten fully charged. Seeing Bario struggling against a Koopatrol she fired her Charge Shot at it, which blew it into a wall. Bario gave her a thumbs up sign before looking for another Koopatrol to try and defeat.

Link's boomerang smacked the back of a Koopatrol trying to sneak up on Kirby. As it tried to recover it was hit by Kirby's over-sized hammer, which caused it to crash into two more Koopatrols who became hopelessly tangled.

The remaining six Koopatrols, surprised by their depletion in numbers immediately drew back from their respective battles. The Smashers were surprised, but they didn't believe that they were giving up. They were right. One by one, each Koopatrol went into its shell and started spinning, but didn't move in a direction. Instead they just kept steadily spinning in the same spot. Raichu was the first to notice something was happening as eight of the Smashers regrouped. Mario was staying off to the side for some reason…

"Hey…why are they glowing?" Raichu asked.

Bario stared at them in confusion for a second before the realization of what they were doing hit him.

"Oh…guys move! They're going to attack with a charge attack! If that hits you…well, it won't be pretty!"

The eight Smashers all dodged. Bario, Samus, Falco, Raichu and Link all rolled or jumped away while Diddy, Kirby and Meta took off into the air. The Koopatrols shot through where they just were and still glowing they went after the Smashers on the ground. Diddy fired numerous peanuts at the Koopatrols but they just bounced off the hard shells. Kirby came crashing down behind the swarm of Koopatrols, using his Cutter's shockwave ability on them. They were jostled a bit…but they still glowed, and now one broke off to come after him and Diddy, whose jetpack had just given out. Meta just fluttered high overhead, not saying anything.

Mario, having made sure the four Koopatrols that attacked him in the beginning of the battle would stay down turned his attention elsewhere; he started to run for Bowser. He didn't get too far before the five Dark Koopatrols leaped in front of him, apparently not letting him get past to Bowser.

Bario back flipped over the Koopatrols. Momentarily confused by the maneuver they stopped, just in time for Raichu to suddenly blast them with electrical balls and for Samus to pelt them with missiles. They took massive damage and their glowing charge faded. However their determination to kill the Smashers wasn't diminished in the slightest and all five spun towards Link. He raised his shield and all five bounced off of it, temporarily stunning them, but the sheer force of their attack caused his shield to bounce back and slam him in the face, knocking him down and causing him to struggle to stay conscious.

Kirby dodged the Koopatrols vicious charges, but the turtle kept coming. Suddenly Meta came crashing down in front of the Koopatrol, stuck his sword under it and flipped it, causing it to crash into the tight cluster of Koopatrols that were temporarily stunned. Seeing an opportunity six of the Smashers finished off the weakened Koopatrols, except for Raichu who was checking on Link.

"Link? You okay?"

Link's eyes were still glazed over but when Raichu said his name he seemed to come to and after a second, gave an emphatic nod to Raichu who helped him up.

Mario got into a fighting stance as the Dark Koopatrols started to encircle him. However before any of the six could make a move, Bowser interrupted.

"Go. Fight the others, I believe they are almost through with your inferior brethren," Bowser told the Koopatrols, "I shall take on this one."

The Dark Koopatrols nodded and ran for the Smashers who had just finished off the last Koopatrol.

Bowser got up and removed himself from his throne and walked within ten feet of Mario.

"So Mario, it comes down to this, the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom…and the villain. I'm always the villain Mario! Always. And you are always the hero. Do you ever tire? Are you ever sick of being the sole savior of the Mushroom Kingdom? I know I'm sick. Sick of losing countless times against you! Of becoming a laughingstock…a fool! I've been regarded as an oaf and an idiot! And at times I've served those roles I admit. I have made stupid mistakes and errors. But it's all your fault! I haven't successfully kidnapped Peach for ages! And even when I do succeed…you're there. Ready to stop me. No more! You've killed my children, my armies, and my dignity, practically everything I have! This is it Mario. The battle begins now!" Bowser roared at Mario, "Have you anything to say for yourself?!"  
"It's-a me-a Mario!" Mario said in his classic fashion.

"Don't give me that! I know…there's more to you than the fake cheerful hero look you give out. You don't battle a person dozens of time and not get a feel for who they are! But fine. If you're going to mock me than let's just finish this."

At those words Bowser belched a stream of fire at Mario. He would have been charbroiled if he didn't jump over the blast. Bowser stopped the fire when he saw Mario jump and watched him come down. Mario's feet were poised to slam into Bowser's head but Bowser swiped with his clawed hands and Mario was knocked to the ground. Mario quickly rolled upon hitting the ground and when he got back on his feet he pulled out his hammer and ran for Bowser. Bowser smirked at Mario's obvious ploy and right before Mario reached Bowser he leapt into the air again and threw his hammer down. Before it hit Bowser got into his spiked shell and the hammer merely bounced off. As Mario came down to grab his hammer Bowser shot forward and slammed into Mario with his shell. Mario was sent flying back before skidding roughly on the ground. Bowser came out his shell and laughed at Mario.

"Gwa ha ha! Don't tell me that's your best? You're too predictable. I've seen everything you have and I know what you're capable of. Heh those tricks may have worked on my minions, but they're nothing compared to me! I can't believe I lost to you before! I may not even need him…," Bowser said.

Mario glared at Bowser and got back to his feet. Picking up his hammer and putting it away in that mysterious place it always seems to disappear to he crouched low to the ground.

"Fine." he said before shooting off five fireballs at blazing speeds at Bowser's face

Bowser eyes widened in shock as the fireballs slammed into his face before he could react. As he stepped backward from the pain Mario ran up to him and upper-cutted Bowser in the chin and then jumped into him with his fist up. This caused Bowser to be bounced up from Mario's fist and then as gravity dragged him down he landed on Mario's surprisingly strong fist again. This repeated for seven hits and as Mario reached the apex of his jump he took his hammer out again and slammed Bowser into the ground before coming down and landing, feet-first on his head. Mario then gracefully leapt off of Bowser and glared at him from a few feet away.

Bario and the rest of the Smashers were looking around trying to find any leftover Koopatrols as the ones they were fighting were…indisposed. They saw Mario being smacked around by Bowser and were about to help him until the five Dark Koopatrols rolled up.

"Oh yeah, those guys, I almost forgot about them," Bario said, "This might be bad…"

"Why? The Koopatrols were tough, but not that bad. These guys may be stronger but there's also a lot less of them. We can take them!" Raichu said.

As soon as he said that one of the Dark Koopatrols charged for Raichu…without going into its shell. The pointy spike on the top of its head was pointed right at his heart and because of its speed it probably would have hit if Bario didn't use his swords to slice at the Dark Koopatrols feet a few inches before it hit Raichu. The Dark Koopatrol jumped to avoid the blow but this caused it to miss Raichu.

The other Dark Koopatrols all got into their shells and charged for the Smashers who jumped or rolled away. Kirby wasn't fast enough and was clipped by one of the attacks, causing him to fall to the round hard. As it came around for a second pass Link threw a bomb at it, which appeared to cause some damage…but the Dark Koopatrol kept coming.

Samus fired a missile which, by sheer luck found its way into one of the leg holes of the shell…when the missile exploded the blast was amplified by the small space and the Koopatrol exploded. Diddy and Meta had to dodge falling spikes, because of their closeness to the explosion but remained mostly unharmed. Falco kept using his Falco Phantasm to stay one step away from the largely impervious Dark Koopatrol that was attacking him…

Bowser didn't know what shocked him more…the incredible power and skill that Mario had just revealed…or that he just said something that WASN'T one his ridiculous catchphrases. Well it didn't matter. That speech he just gave Mario wouldn't let him lose now, that was hard to make! Why…it took Kamek fifteen minutes to come up with! Good thing Kamek thought to have Bowser write it on the back of his hand or he might have forgotten it.  
Bowser slowly got to his feet and looked at Mario with a mixture of anger and respect…and maybe a hint of fear. Bowser dashed forward and swiped at Mario repeatedly with his claws, while shooting fire at Mario as he dodged. However Mario used his cape to deflect the fire into Bowser's face which although it didn't hurt to bad it temporarily blinded him. While Bowser scrubbed wildly at his eyes Mario snuck up behind him and grabbed Bowser's short tail.

Bowser's eyes bulged as he felt Mario's hands clamp down on his tail in an iron grip. He knew what this was! Mario started to spin around, which spun Bowser in an increasingly faster and faster circle. Soon Mario was spinning fast enough that Bowser was actually off the ground! As Mario gauged what he figured would be the best time to throw Bowser, the giant tyrant closed his eyes in fear of the inevitable pain he was about to feel. Mario let Bowser go at just the right angle…to cause him to crash in the four charging Dark Koopatrols. Bowser's impressive girth crushed one immediately and the other three were slammed into a wall by Bowser's rapidly sliding body.

The other eight Smashers were slightly confused. A giant turtle had just flown right by them. They stayed there motionless, trying to process what happened when they heard a voice.

"So long-a Bowser!" Mario cheerfully said.

The Smashers looked at Mario who had taken off his hat and was waving it at the Smashers.

"Mario…you did that?" Diddy asked.

Mario just nodded his head and started to walk towards them.

Bowser slowly opened his eyes. Ow. It felt like a spike was being driven up his…oh. There was a spike. There were three Dark Koopatrols underneath him (All the other Koopatrols and Dark Koopatrols had disappeared as enemies conveniently do when they die. He slid the barely conscious creatures out from under him. Shoot. Looks like he will have to rely on…him. He was really hoping he'd be able to beat the Smashers by himself, but they and especially Mario were way stronger than he was expecting. So. Plan B it is. That one always seems to work better anyways. The A in plan A must stand for Awful, as that plan never seems to work…agh! Bowser was tired. He better act fast or he'd pass out. He clutched a Dark Koopatrol around the neck…and aimed…

Mario had just about reached the other Smashers, confident that they had all won when a pointy creature slammed into him from the side. Bowser had thrown a Dark Koopatrol at him! Fortunately it had hit Mario with its belly rather than its spikes…which might have hurt. Mario quickly ducked another Dark Koopatrol while the third one, aimed at the Smashers was deflected by Kirby's hammer. They checked to make sure they were all okay (Mario was fine) and to make sure the Dark Koopatrols weren't going to attack. They weren't. They were so heavily damaged that they exploded, which bathed the Smashers in healing waves…but when they looked around for Bowser they saw him dash into a secret doorway behind his throne.

"Dang it! He's getting away! After him guys!" Bario said.

The Smashers nodded and ran into the tunnel, hot on the heels of the weakened Bowser…

(Author's Note: We're nearing the end of the first part in this story. Just one more chapter to go and then the Mushroom Kingdom is done. There is more however…)


	9. Wow…that’s a really big hand

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Nine: Wow…that's a really big hand. **

Bario ran. Bowser could not be allowed to escape. Bario and the other Smashers were charging down a long dark tunnel that seemed to be sloping slightly upward. It was to dark to see more than a few feet in front of him, but Bario could hear Bowser's stomping footsteps and panting breath just a little ways down the tunnel. Bario knew that Bowser had something devious up his sleeve. He must, otherwise he wouldn't be leading them on this chase…he just hoped they could handle it…

Mario ran. Bowser had escaped just when Mario had beaten him. Bowser was getting quite annoying and Mario hoped that he could just hurry up and get to where he was trying to go so Mario can…finish him.

Link ran. His weapons were heavy and the tunnel was long but he pushed on. Bowser was just another tyrant. Like Ganondorf. Link hated Ganondorf. That scum. Link couldn't count how many times they've done battle…but it was definitely in the too freaking many range. Bowser won't get away. Not like Ganondorf always seems to do.

Kirby ran. He was hungry. There really wasn't a lot to eat inside this gloomy castle. He hoped they could just hurry up and finish Bowser so they could go to Peach's castle and get something yummy to eat. Mmm…food.

Samus ran. This world was strange…but it seemed to fit what she gathered from Mario and the other Mushroom Kingdom residents. She was surprised by the power and difficulty of the enemies…and ashamed. She is vastly more technologically advanced then any of the creatures here…yet those "Magikoopas" knocked her out easily. Could her weapons and armor really be that useless? Mario didn't use any of those things and yet he got along fine and even won the tournament that she fought hard in. But those are thoughts for later. Now she just needed to keep up with the others.

Falco ran. He missed the Star Fox crew. He didn't really like Slippy as he was kind of creepy, plus there was the whole…I think it's a guy, but it sounds like a girl thing going on, and Peppy was getting annoying but Fox…Fox was cool. They may have butted heads at times but Falco knew…deep down they were friends. He hadn't seen Fox since he left for the Mushroom Kingdom, by way of the portals that were set up for the Smash tournaments and he hoped he was okay.

Diddy ran. He suspected, strongly suspected, that even if Bowser wasn't Giga Bowser, which he was pretty sure he was although Diddy didn't know how Bowser could possibly transform, then at least Bowser would know where Giga was. He needed to catch up to Bowser so he could finally get started on the hunt for revenge.

Raichu ran. He was just glad that this little adventure was almost over. He had planned on something happening, that's why he signed up for guard duty since apparently all the Toads are completely useless…but he definitely wasn't expecting to be dragged into a siege on a castle owned by an evil tyrant. He just hoped that whatever Bowser has planned…it's not TOO bad.

Meta flapped along silently. Just like the fight against the Koopatrols he maintained his silent outlook as if he was thinking of something more important. He kept pace with the others with the steady beat of his wings providing a counter to their steady running.

The Smashers ran. Believing they were near the end of their adventure they pressed on, hoping to finally defeat and remove Bowser forever. Each Smasher has at least one big enemy in their home world. Bowser, Ganondorf, Mother Brain, King K. Rool, King Dedede, Andross…the list goes on and on. They've always done battle with these foes, and the heroes usually win…but the villains always come back. If they could somehow defeat Bowser for good… if there was a possibility of defeating the other baddies, well then they each had a hope of finally removing all the evil from their homeland. That was the hope that drove most of them as they neared the end of the tunnel. That was the hope that although it was foolish, idealistic and unrealistic, kept them running all the way to a door that Bowser had just dashed through. That was the hope that gave them the strength to slam down the door that Bowser had locked behind him in order to slow them down. This was what most of them were fighting for. And they were going to fight hard.

Of course, if they actually did get rid of all the evil, life would be rather boring wouldn't it?

When the Smashers burst through the door they found a room that was unlike any of the other chambers they have been in so far. It maintained the same dungeony atmosphere and size (It was about twice the size of the Koopaling chamber, making it the largest room they've been in so far); with gray stone walls and torches…but the thing that made it different was the massive skylight. It extended through half of the ceiling and was about fifty feet long and wide…at least. It let in the bright moonlight that bathed the chamber in an illuminating…if creepy light.  
"It's night already?" Raichu wondered, not realizing that they have been traveling that long.

In the center of the room about twenty feet in diameter was a circular pedestal that rose about four feet off the ground. Bowser had clambered up to it and flashed the Smashers nervous glances as he stared at the skylight…

"So you followed me…heh…can't say I'm surprised…but you're too late! He's here!" Bowser said with hint of manic glee.

"Who's he-" Bario started before something large and white crashed through the skylight.

The glass sparkled and seemed unnaturally slow as it came down around the platform Bowser was on. Link raised his shield but it wasn't necessary as none of the glass came anywhere near the Smashers.

The white shape slowly unfolded into a humungous white-gloved hand about twice the size of Bowser. The hand floated several feet above the ground and it almost seemed to look around the room, even though it lacked eyes. It appeared to see the Smashers and after a moment a deep…evil laugh emanated from the hand, even though it lacked a mouth.

"Master Hand," echoed several Smashers as the supposedly most evil being in existence had revealed himself.

"Grr! Did you have to shatter the skylight? It opens up, you know!" Bowser whined.

At the sound of his voice Master Hand whirled around and if hands had looks, and looks could kill, Bowser would be a smoking pile of ash right about now.

"Uh…sorry," Bowser apologized.

"So Bowser…you have an alliance with Master Hand? Is that it?" Bario demanded.

"Heh! Oh Master Hand has more than just an alliance with ME! Why almost all of the villains are working for-HEY!" Bowser yelled as a blue laser shot from Master Hand's finger almost pierced his foot, "What was…oh. Not supposed to reveal the plan. Right."

"What?! The villains?! Do you mean Giga Bowser as well?" Diddy demanded.

At Diddy's words Bowser began to laugh.

"Oh man…this is great. You're the monkey right? The one that lived at Donkey Kong's? Oh…I know I've denied it for so long…but now I don't have to hide it!"

"What? What are you talking about?!" Diddy demanded looking quite unsettled.

"You idiot…I AM Giga Bowser!" Bowser said.

This revelation made several of the Smashers take a step back and Diddy was stunned…but Mario and Bario were not surprised.

"I always figured it was you. It was kind of obvious," Bario said.

"Gwa ha ha! Hit it Master Hand!" Bowser yelled.

Master Hand then created a large powerful dark ball of energy, which he dropped onto Bowser. When the ball made contact it encircled Bowser…and he began to change.

The Smashers stared in shock as Bowser grew…and grew…and grew. He towered over them and laughed as his horns lengthened and sharpened and his tail became longer and spiked. Soon Bowser was gone…and in his place stood the vile monstrosity known as…Giga Bowser.

"Gwa ha ha!" Giga Bowser laughed in his new booming voice as he stared at the Smashers with seemingly small eyes on his massive body, "You fools! You thought you would finish me off here…but instead it shall be your final resting place!"  
At those words the chamber they came to this area through was suddenly closed off as a portion of the wall slid across it.

"I have a feeling that this may have been a bad idea Diddy…Diddy?" Raichu said as he looked for Diddy who WAS right next to him, "Where's Diddy?!"

The Smashers frantically looked around for Diddy when Falco spotted him. He had sneaked onto the platform with Giga Bowser.

"Diddy! NO!" Falco yelled.

Giga looked at the tiny monkey that was charging for him. There was no style or plan…it was just an angry charge. Giga easily swatted Diddy away and the airborne chimp slammed hard into a wall, barely hanging on to consciousness.

"Diddy!" Raichu yelled before running over to his fallen friend.

As Giga Bowser laughed in manic glee Master Hand again charged up a ball of energy. He released it and the ball floated down to just behind Giga. As it floated it expanded until it was a swirling vortex of black and blue. Giga laughed again as Master Hand flew into it and vanished.

"You're not getting away with this!" Bario shouted as he pulled out his two swords.

"Gwa ha ha! Oh no…it's you who aren't going to get out of here! So long!" Giga said before snapping his large fingers and jumping into the portal.

"NO!" Diddy screamed as his eyes snapped fully open and he saw the object of his rage escape, "I CAN'T LET HIM GET AWAY!"

"DIDDY!" Raichu yelled, "Chill! You can't beat him alone, he'll flatten you! We need to go together! Remember? I promised to help take down Giga…just like you promised to help me take out Mewtwo!"

Listening to Raichu's words seemed to calm Diddy as he and Raichu walked up to the other Smashers, the crack of Giga's fingers still echoing through the air.

"I don't like this…" Bario said.

Suddenly panels from the sides and the floor opened up and out poured…enemies. Gloombas, Hyper Goombas, Hammer Bros., Chomp Bros., dozens of enemies. And from the shattered skylight Lakitus, Paragoombas, Paratroopas and more spewed forth. Soon there were almost a hundred enemies…more as the Lakitus threw down Spiny Eggs with hatched into Spinies…that surrounded the Smashers who were forced to huddle in a small circle to avoid the rapidly closing in enemies. Throughout all of this none of the Smashers appeared to notice the portal change from black and blue to a bright green color…

"Oh man…this is really…really bad," Bario said.

"Yeah, just a bit!" Falco said in a tense voice.

"There's no way that even all of us could kill all these enemies…we have to go to that portal!" Bario said.

The other Smashers nodded and as one they all turned to the portal…and fired every single projectile weapon they had…Diddy's peanuts, Mario's fireballs, Raichu's electricity, Samus's missiles, Link's arrows, Falco's guns and even Kirby's shockwave. All these attacks flew forward and obliterated several of the enemies in their way. They ran forward just as several Hyper Goombas unleashed a charge attack from behind but Meta and Bario, who were staying in the back quickly and skillfully sliced them in half.

Three Spinies rolled into balls and charged for the Smashers. Mario jumped in their way and used his cape to spin them around. Confused and disoriented they continued moving and smacked down several of their allies. The Smashers continued moving, barely keeping the swarm of enemies back. Fortunately there were so many enemies that they couldn't move very well, and they kept getting in their own companions way.  
Soon the Smashers were on the pedestal and only a dozen feet from the portal…and imagined temporary salvation. However as most of the other enemies struggled to attack and dodge the continued projectile attacks being thrown at them by the Smashers, five Hammer Bros and three massive Chomp Bros. managed to get in between the Smashers and the portal. The Hammer Bros. were strong Koopas with helmets with the ability to throw hammers while the Chomp Bros. were immensely buff Koopas carrying small throw-able Chomps that return after they are thrown.

The Hammer Bros. didn't say a word before rapidly flinging several hammers at the Smashers. Without even thinking, Falco jumped in their path and turned on his reflector which sent the hammers back at the attackers, taking out three of the Hammer Bros. A Chomp Bros. then threw a powerful Chomp at Falco, and although he managed to reflect it, the power of the Chomp and the previous assaults caused his reflector to shatter and stun him.  
Bario ran up after Falco's heroic act, which surprised all the Smashers, and before the Hammer Bros. could do anything about it he removed the heads of the last two. The Chomp Bros, in a fit of anger, threw both their Chomps at Bario who rolled under them and stabbed a Chomp Bro in the stomach. Growling, the creature dealt Bario a mighty backhand, and accidentally sent him flying into the portal. He was immediately sucked up and disappeared.

"Bario!" Raichu said, as he shocked two Gloombas that were attacking.

"Don't worry about him! He was right! We need to get to that portal!" the recently recovered Falco said.

The three Chomp Bros., one with a large stomach wound, positioned themselves in front of the portal, while the other enemies surrounded the pedestal, prepared to attack the second the Smashers let down their guard.

"Giga…here I come!" Diddy yelled as he charged forward.

The Chomp Bros. smiled at his foolish charge and threw their Chomps at him.

"Diddy! NO!" Raichu yelled.

At the last second, before the Chomps hit him he activated his jetpack and flew right over their heads and into the portal.

While the Chomp Bros. looked around in confusion Mario ran up, hammered one in the face and then grabbed the other one and flung it into its companion. Mario then jumped into the portal and was whisked away.

Now that the Chomp Bros. were no longer around the other Smashers quickly ran forward as the massive army fought to climb up to the pedestal. The last one in, Kirby, was almost dragged back by some Koopas but as soon as he climbed in, the portal closed for some reason, blocking all the enemies from following…and now all the Smashers were being taken to an unknown place….


	10. In the land of the dead…

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Ten: In the land of the dead…living things shall be in short supply!**

After a spinning journey through a psychedelic tunnel (the Portal) Bario was dumped roughly onto the ground. He slowly staggered to his feet and looked around. He was in what looked like a ruined and desiccated town and market. There were several dark alleys, leading to other parts of the town and there was a ruined drawbridge leading further into this new area. In front of where Bario showed up was a path leading to an evil looking castle. In the towns prime it was probably a bustling market…oh. No. Bario ran over to one of the rotting signs. He recognized that store…this was Hyrule Castle Town!  
Before he could come to grips with that terrible fact, Diddy came shooting out of the Portal as well. He scrambled to his feet quickly and pulled out his peanut guns while looking wildly around for Giga Bowser.

"Alright! Where is that scumbag? I'm going to kill him!"

However it wasn't long before Mario came flying through the portal feet-first. Since Diddy was still in the way, Mario landed on Diddy's head and, using Diddy as a springboard he leapt high into the air before coming down gracefully on his feet several feet away from the Portal. Diddy however was sprawled on the ground, stunned. That was a bad thing as in the next couple of seconds Link, Samus, Falco, Meta, Kirby and Raichu all came out of the Portal and landed in a twisted and confused mess…with Diddy on the bottom.

"AGH!" Raichu yelled as he struggled to get Falco and Link off him.

"Oh great job guys, what with the squishing me and everything!" Diddy shouted.

Eventually, with no help from Mario or Bario who both thought the situation was pretty funny the others managed to untangle themselves. However as soon as Link got a good look at his surroundings he froze.

"Link? Hey what's up?" Falco asked, "Hey why is Link freaking?"

"I can answer that," Bario said before any one could say anything, resulting in the rest of the Smashers to look at him, "This…gray and twisted place…is in his and mine land of Hyrule. Our largest town, Hyrule Castle Town. Neither of us lived here, although we have both been here…the last time it looked like this was when Ganondorf attacked so many years ago. It stayed like this for seven years…but eventually Ganondorf was beaten as I'm sure you've all guessed."  
At that most of the Smashers nodded their heads in agreement.

"Anyways, I don't know how this town got like this so fast. I'm assuming when Link and I left Ganondorf struck, sort of like when Bowser attacked, leaving it like this and driving its people out. Without any further ado I welcome you to…Redead Town."

At Bario's words, almost as if on cue a loud piercing shriek cut through the decaying air.

"What the heck was that?!" Diddy asked.

"The reason this place is called Redead Town. It was a Redead," Bario sadly said while he unsheathed his swords.

Diddy and Raichu both looked confused, and Meta had resumed his random babbling but the other Smashers nodded. Most of them had encountered Redeads at the last Smash tournament in a special arena designed by Ganondorf. He tried to use real traps that might have killed some of the other Smashers, but Link and Zelda (A powerful magic-wielding princess) managed to block them off before anyone went through.

"What's a Redead?" Raichu asked.

"That," Bario told him while pointing with his swords.

The Smashers all looked where he pointed, down a dark narrow alley. A strange deformed creature shuffled slowly toward them, just barely coming in view from the gloom. It was a light brown color and while it appeared to be human shaped, it also appeared to be lacking in bones with the floppy way it moved. The creatures head was rounded and only had three black cavernous holes as features. The Smashers unconsciously backed away from the evil beast, before they noticed three more coming from a second alley. Several more followed behind the first, and at least five came from the ruined drawbridge area. The Smashers moved into a defensive circle with weapons raised as the Redeads edged closer. Suddenly large iron bars shot from the ground, blocking off the drawbridge and the path to the castle.

"Alright guys, they may not look it but the Redeads can take a few hits. Don't look at them in the eyes when they scream or you'll freeze! Also don't let them get close, or crazy as it may sound, they will latch onto you and bite your head with teeth they've got hidden away somewhere! Attack!" Bario commanded.

Link threw his boomerang at Bario's words. The twirling weapon spun towards a Redead and impacted its body with a wet smack. The sharp boomerang cut through the creature's abdomen and came back around and sliced through another's head. Link caught the boomerang as it flew towards him. The first Redead let out a low groan, but despite the massive wound it kept coming, undeterred while the one who's head was removed exploded in a puff of dust.

While this was happening the Redeads still shambled closer, completely surrounding the Smashers.

"Cut a path through them! They're slow, so if we can get behind them we can wipe them out!" Bario said.

Samus fired multiple missiles, and the other Smashers also used their ranged attacks on the Redeads by the path to the castle…but they were only fifteen feet away and even though several were destroyed they kept coming, bit by relentless bit. Eventually enough were destroyed for the Smashers to charge forward and slip out of the increasingly small circle the Redeads were creating.

Diddy looked at one of the creatures as he was running past…and it looked back and shrieked. Before he knew what happened he discovered he was unable to move. He stopped, frozen as the other Smashers ran on, unaware of the monkey's plight. Diddy stared in petrified horror as the Redead shambled towards him. Diddy thought he heard someone cry out his name but was too full of fear to be sure. As it got within striking distance it splayed its limbs out and leaped onto Diddy knocking him down. It tried to bite him but the paralysis was wearing off and he was squirming, plus he was considerably smaller than the Redead was used to attacking. The fiend was surprisingly strong and easily held Diddy down. It wouldn't be long before it could deliver a finishing blow…

Raichu stopped. That shriek he just heard sounded unnervingly close. He turned around, just in time to see the Redead about to attack Diddy.

"Diddy!" Raichu shouted before rushing back to help his friend, not realizing that the other Redeads were moving to cut Raichu and Diddy off from the others…

Raichu didn't want to shock the Redead as he feared the electricity would travel through and hurt his friend so he did the second thing that came to mind. He jumped up and bit the Redead on the shoulder. The creature moaned but didn't do anything else, and Raichu spat out the chunk of Redead.

"Bleh! It's like dirt! Wait…dirt…that doesn't conduct electricity, well I don't know how this'll work but…"

Raichu fired a ball of electricity at the Redead. The creature again moaned but then fell apart as the electrical surge appeared to have unbalanced its decaying composition. Diddy shakily got to his feet.

"Thanks…," he started before Raichu interrupted.

"Think nothing of it."

They turned to rejoin the other Smashers, only to see eleven Redeads standing between them and their friends.

"Hey!" Falco yelled, "What are you guys doing over there?"

"We ran into some problems!" Raichu said, "And why are those things just standing there?"  
"It looks like their waiting for something…" Diddy remarked.

"Yummy cheese kitties!" Meta exclaimed.

Suddenly the Redeads charged forward with a surprising burst of speed at the main group of the Smashers. The Redeads were leaping and trying to get on them while shrieking. Kirby, Link and Falco were all frozen, but the rest managed to avoid that and hacked and attacked at the Redeads. Raichu fired more thunder balls, while Diddy used his peanut gun to keep the Redeads off of their frozen friends. Soon the Redeads fell…but the battle against the minions of death wasn't over…

"So…was that it?" Falco asked.

He shouldn't have asked. At that moment skeletal hands clawed their way through the dirt around the Smashers.

"What?! What's happening?!" Raichu asked.

"I think…Stalchildren," Bario said.

More hands shot up from the ground and pulled hard. They appeared to be yanking themselves out from under the ground.

"What are these things?" Diddy asked.

"Skeleton creatures, rumored to be the souls of dead children who died in a terrible war. I think they're just more minions of Ganondorf," Bario said.

"Woohoo," Mario said in a monotone voice as he got his hammer ready.

The Stalchildren finally pulled themselves up. They were skeletons and apparently mostly human skeletons…but the heads seemed like horse skulls, and the eye sockets glowed red. They were only four feet tall…but there were at least two dozen.

"They aren't nearly as strong as a Redead but they like to swarm. Watch out for their hands, the bones are sharp!" Bario said as the Stalchildren staggered towards them.

Mario shot off several fireballs. Apparently the Stalchildren were weak to fire because as soon as the fire touched them they went up in flames and disintegrated. Raichu was trying to zap them, but it wasn't very effective. Apparently bones aren't weak to electricity. Diddy was using his tail, as a good blunt attack caused the Stalchildren to fall apart.

Several appeared to be nearing Kirby who smacked them away with his hammer, but one managed to slash him. He lost focus and more pressed in on him until Meta-Knight swooped in and sliced them up with several well-placed sword strikes. He looked at Kirby.

"Will you be the daughter of my child?" Meta asked before flying away again. Kirby just looked at him in confusion.

Link used his bombs to blow up some of the Stalchildren and when they got close he slammed them with his shield, causing them to fall apart. Falco tried using his pistol but the shots were ineffective. So he used his Fire Falco and destroyed four in one attack. Samus shot at them, and essentially ignored them when they got close as their bone-claws couldn't penetrate her armor, although when five surrounded her she gave them all smacks with her arm cannon which of course caused them to fall apart. Bario used his swords to great effect, although he used the flat more than the sharp sides, as that was more effective.

Soon all the pathetically weak Stalchildren were piles of bones…but then the bones began to move…

"Eh?" Falco said as the nine Smashers formed into a loose cluster.

The bones shattered into dust. The dust swirled around and around before coalescing into solid shapes. Nine solid shapes. As the dust cleared the Smashers could see that they were again facing skeletal creatures. These ones were larger, about six feet tall and somehow had summoned large, red, twisted swords and similarly beaten shields. The nine skeletons looked at the Smashers with blazing eyes and raised their weapons…

"Uh…Bario…what are those?" Raichu asked.

"Those…are Stalfos. Never saw them form from Stalchildren before, but they do appear to be related somehow. The Stalfos are very powerful and adept with their weapons, but they don't really have any special abilities…" Bario told them.  
The Stalfos grinned their skeleton grin and walked towards the Smashers. Samus fired a missile at one but it merely deflected it with its surprisingly strong shield.

"I don't think projectiles are going to cut it with these guys…we'll have get up close and personal!" Bario said as he ran at a Stalfos heading for him.  
"Up close? To that?! Uh…oh…" Diddy and Raichu said.

Two Stalfos headed for them, but rather than staying and fighting, they ran.

Mario pulled out his hammer just in time to intercept the swing of a Stalfos. The clang of red steel and Mario's hammer made a resounding noise throughout the ruined town. The Stalfos growled and swung again. Mario spun his cape, spinning the creature around. It looked where it thought Mario would be in confusion before a hammer smacked him from behind. Disoriented the skeleton tried to turn around but it got a face-full of fire, which, like the Stalchildren before, disintegrated it immediately.

Link used his shield to block a vertical slice from the Stalfos attacking him, and then stabbed at it while it was distracted. It grunted, but then slammed its shield at Link with such force it knocked him over. The Stalfos then jumped and came down clearly intending to cleave him in two. Link however rolled out of the way at the last second and while the Stalfos struggled to get its sword out of the ground, he threw a bomb at it. The Stalfos tried to avoid the bomb, but it forgot to let go of the sword, slowing it down so the bomb hit the creature in the chest…and exploded, completely destroying it.

Meta battled his Stalfos quite skillfully. He flew just out of range, only diving in long enough to strike before flapping away. The Stalfos was getting quite upset, and without thinking it threw its shield at Meta. Meta deflected it with his sword, causing the shield to fly off and slam into one of the Stalfos chasing Diddy and Raichu. Meta then dived in and struck again. The Stalfos tried to block with its shield…before realizing its shield was gone. Meta's sword cut through the creature and it crumbled almost immediately.

Kirby however was not having such an easy time with his opponent. His large hammer essentially covered him from all attacks…but it was difficult to strike the Stalfos. Kirby eventually decided to be defensive. He blocked all of the skeleton's attacks with the hammer, and occasionally rolled to avoid a well-placed stab. After a bit the Stalfos became very angry and tried to use a jump attack. Seeing an opportunity Kirby slammed the foolhardy creature with his hammer, knocking both weapons from its grasp and causing it to collapse onto the ground. It struggled to get back up, as Kirby jumped over it and turned into a rock. Kirby plummeted down and crushed the evil creature's head, destroying it.

Falco just barely dodged the Stalfos sword as it struck again. He let out a flurry of kicks but the Stalfos intercepted them with the shield. The Stalfos then knocked him down by slamming him with the shield. Falco fell to ground and the Stalfos sliced, but Falco turned on his Reflector at the last second, zapping the skeleton. While it tried to recover Falco used his Fire Falco move and smashed through the Stalfos, vaporizing it.

Bario deflected the swing from a Stalfos attacking him with a deft twist of one of his blades. The creature growled and blocked a swing from Bario with its shield. It then went for a powerful vertical slice. Bario blocked it by crossing his blades above him and then twisted, sending the Stalfos sword spinning into the ground. The Stalfos tried to slam him with its shield but Bario rolled under the strike and as he came up he sliced its legs off. The Stalfos fell to the ground and felt surprise, and then stopped feeling much of anything as Bario removed its head.

Samus again fired a missile at a rapidly approaching Stalfos but again it raised its shield, causing the missile to explode with out causing any damage. The Stalfos leaped forward and tried to slice at her, but Samus rolled into her Morph Ball form. The Stalfos looked confused at the small orange ball that suddenly appeared. It bent down to get a closer look when the ball suddenly dropped a smaller glowing ball. The orange ball then darted away. The Stalfos looked at the glowing ball…then figured that maybe whatever it was wouldn't be a good thing and was about to run before the ball exploded. It was a small explosion, but effective nonetheless as it caused the skeleton to fall over and be temporarily stunned. Samus unrolled and as the Stalfos tried to recover, she blasted it with a missile, blowing the offending creature into smithereens.

As Diddy and Raichu tried to escape from their pursuers they heard a loud cracking noise and a spinning disc flew over their heads before being embedded inside the outer wall of one of the ruined stores. They turned around and discovered the cracking noise was the sound of a shield flying through a Stalfos. One of the Stalfos was lying in pieces on the ground. The second looked at its companion in confusion before growling and moving towards Diddy and Raichu. Suddenly Raichu had an idea!  
"The Stalfos may be impervious to electricity…but they're metal weapons aren't! I can zap them through those!" he said.

Raichu fired a small bolt of electricity at the Stalfos's sword. The bolt traveled rapidly down the metal sword…and fizzled out completely upon touching the Stalfos.

"Oh. If they aren't susceptible to it…I guess having it travel through metal wouldn't do any good…," Raichu said.

The Stalfos reared back for a mighty swing.

"Crud!" Diddy said, "I was hoping to save this for Giga!" Diddy threw something orange at the Stalfos, "Get down!" he yelled as he yanked Raichu to the ground.

"Wha-" Raichu said before an explosion pummeled the area where the Stalfos was, destroying it and sending debris everywhere. Fortunately, when it got near other Smashers they deflected the bone shards. The remains of all the other Stalfos exploded into the classic pink dust, healing everyone. The bars, blocking the way to the foreboding castle disappeared but the one by the drawbridge remained. With all the Stalfos defeated the Smashers slowly headed for the center of the town, near where flowers used to grow in little gardens. Falco asked the most pressing question.

"I think I speak for everyone when I ask…what the heck was that explosion?!"  
Diddy answered kind of sheepishly, although there was a hint of pride, "That was an orange grenade, made by Funky, a relative of mine. I have a few…but I wanted to save them for Giga since I don't think he'd expect a little monkey to be well-armed."  
"Well that makes sense, but where do you keep them?" Raichu asked.

"Probably in the same place Mario keeps his hammer!" Falco cracked, since it seemingly appeared out of nowhere, as did Link's endless supply of arrows.

Right about then the Smashers noticed that Bario was gone.

"Hey…where's Bario?" Falco asked.

His question was quickly answered as several large crates were thrown near the Smashers, causing a few of them to jump.  
"Here. I figured you guys could use some food," Bario said.

Link brightened upon seeing the crates and using his sword pried one upon. Bario walked over as well and opened the other two. Inside was bread, meat, fruit, and water…some basic foods and drinks that looked REAL good to the Smashers right about now.

"Where'd you get this?" Diddy asked.

"I used to live near here. That store over there stocked tons of food, and I figured that maybe the outside is bad, but there might be some useful stuff inside. Don't worry, I'm positive the food isn't poisoned or anything," Bario told them.

All the Smashers nodded and started eating with intense fervor; after all it had been quite a while since they last had some food. Samus removed her helmet to have some as well. Her suit had liquid nutrients that she could drink through a straw in the helmet, but eating actual food tastes so much better. Bario let everyone else grab something they wanted before selecting a large chunk of roast ham. Using his blades he sliced it into several slices, which he began eating.

After everyone finished their mad eating frenzy and slowed down a bit, Bario told them a bit of what he thought might be coming.

"Well…I think it is safe to say that this town is like this because Ganondorf has returned and is continuing his evil deeds. That's his tower," Bario said while pointing at the humongous castle that was in front of the town, "And I have a pretty good feeling he's in there waiting for us. Hopefully this won't be like Bowser's castle, where we had to battle quite a few enemies…but I think it will be worse. Stay on your toes, and follow Link's lead since this IS his homeland. He should be familiar with the enemies, right Link?" Bario asked. Link nodded.

"Bario, why'd you say just Link's lead…aren't you from here too?" Raichu asked.

"What? Oh…right. Yeah, I'm from here…but Link's probably more experienced…after all he's been on far more adventures than me. When you're all ready I guess we should get going."

"Yeah, but I have a few questions," Diddy said.

"Okay…shoot," Bario told him.

"Where did Giga Bowser go…and what does Master Hand have to do with Bowser and Ganondorf?"  
"Oh. I'm not sure, but I'd have to say that Giga and Master Hand changed where the portal led in order to keep us off of him…and as for his involvement, well if I had to guess I would say that Master Hand is frustrated with being defeated in his plans to kill the heroes of the different worlds twice now and is probably using the villains of those worlds to stop not only us, but eventually rule all the worlds. I'm not sure if that's true, but super-villains usually work that way."

"Oh. Okay. I guess we should get going then, as we have a long road ahead of us," Diddy said, a little sad that this adventure was going on far longer than he or…probably anyone else expected.

The other Smashers all agreed, and after finishing off what they were eating and in Samus's case, getting their helmets on, they all moved as a group towards the evil castle, and hopefully some answers to Master Hand's involvement, and where Giga and Master Hand went. Next stop…Ganondorf's Tower!


	11. Big Bad Boss…things

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Eleven: Big, Bad Boss…things**

Following the defeat of the enemies at the old Hyrule Castle Town, the Smashers took a short hike to Ganondorf's Tower. The building floated over a deep chasm with bubbling lava boiling beneath. However, unlike like last time Ganondorf took over Hyrule, there was a wooden bridge connecting the ruined ground to the evil place.  
"Well…that's convenient," Falco said.

"No. It just means he's confident that he can kill us," Bario told him.

"Oh," Falco said.

The Smashers silently walked across the thick wooden bridge. There was no door to the tower, merely a large rectangular opening, leading to inky blackness. The Smashers took a deep breath before entering the hole.

Inside was a long hallway and Link immediately saw that the Tower had changed. He didn't say anything of course and the Smashers walked along the lengthy hall. After a while they came to a door. Seeing no other features in the mostly gray-stoned hall lit only by whatever feeble light came in through the door and a few flickering torches, they went in.

As soon as all the Smashers went through the door, thick bars came across it, preventing it from being opened. At the other end of the room was a similarly barred door. The chamber was reminiscent of Bowser's rooms…but larger, perhaps one hundred feet long and wide. Although there were no obvious sources of light, it was bright and easy to see. Three large creatures stood between them and the way out…and they looked ready to rumble.

One creature looked like a massive reptile. It had scale-like armor and a large mouth filled with sharp teeth. It had a short tail and big three toed feet. It stood at least ten feet tall…and quite a bit longer. Surrounding it were smaller, less dangerous looking versions of it…about six. There were also ten bright green, legless creatures around the beast. It growled menacingly and opened its massive mouth, as if to threaten.

The second creature, although not as gigantic was still quite big. A plant creature with four different colored flower things, one blue, one red, one green, and one was purple. Each of the flowers had what appeared to be a mouth…but that's crazy!

The third one was about the size of the plant. It was a massive, insectile crab beast. It had one giant eye, several scuttling legs and one large claw.

The Smashers and the beasts stared at each other, neither wanting to make the first move. Falco finally asked a question that was bugging him, Raichu, Diddy, Samus and Kirby.

"What the heck are those?!"

Bario looked at Falco in surprise before answering.

"I'm surprised you never heard of them…but whatever. The large reptile is called King Dodongo. He has nearly impervious armor, and the ability to shoot large waves of fire from his mouth. The smaller versions of him are regular Dodongos, also with a fire ability but not as strong. The little green things are Baby Dodongos. They can burrow under the ground and come up with surprising speed. All the Dodongos are prone to explode before they die, because they lose control of the fires in their belly, so watch out!"

"What?! Fire shooting enemies that explode! That's crazy!" Diddy yelled.

"Crazy it may be but the other two are pretty bad as well. The plant is called Manhandla. The central green section is impervious to most attacks, but the flowers are very weak. For some reason, if the flowers are attacked by someone either wearing the same color on their clothes or same hair color etc…the flowers will vanish, but if attacked by someone WITHOUT the colors the flower will shock the attacker, and recreate the destroyed flowers. Ganondorf put some hefty magic spells on that creature. Plus, it shoots fireballs from the flowers and speeds up as each one is destroyed so be careful!"

As Bario was telling the Smashers to watch out they didn't notice that several of the Baby Dodongos were burrowing into the ground…

"As for the crab thing…well that is Gohma. She is very powerful, watch out for her claw and she can create small larvae to defend herself, so look out for that…"

Bario trailed off as he noticed four…no six bumps in the ground moving fast towards the Smashers. Strange…he thought that the floor was stone…must be weak stone for Baby Dodongos to burrow through it…wait…BABY DODONGOS!  
"Look out!" Bario yelled as three Baby Dodongos erupted from the ground and tackled Falco and Raichu.

Falco fell to the ground with two on top of him. They weren't really hurting him, just flailing wildly. He growled and kicked them off, jumped up and pumped a few laser shots before they could escape. He smirked as they squealed…and twitched. Huh. Weird. Suddenly Mario jumped over and punched them away, and then grabbed the one on Raichu and threw it at the other two. They exploded, creating a sizable dent in the floor. Bario shot an angry look at Falco.

"Dang it Falco! Don't you listen?! I told you that they exploded before they die, and then you go on and almost get us killed!"  
"Sorry…I wasn't thinking, no need to get mad," Falco said sheepishly.

Before they could continue the argument three more Baby Dodongos erupted from the ground. The Smashers all jumped back and the Babies didn't tackle anyone, but moved rapidly towards Meta. Meta sliced each one once, blindingly fast, and then with a flick of the wrist sent the Babies flying back. As they plummeted through the air, screeching and twitching, Link fired his Boomerang at JUST the right angle, sending them farther…and causing them to land right by the other Dodongos. The three Babies exploded, damaging the remaining four enough to cause THEM to explode, and severely damaging the six Dodongos.  
"Ha! That should take care of them," Diddy said.

However, when the smoke cleared the six regular Dodongos were shaking their heads, and apparently suffering no lasting effects. King Dodongo appeared untouched.

"What?!" Raichu asked, "How can he be unharmed?!"

"I told you that he has pretty much invincible armor!" Bario said.

"Well how are we supposed to kill him then?" Falco asked.

"Worry about that later, we have company!" Bario told him as the six Dodongos charged forward at a nod from their King.

The Smashers readied their weapons, but the Dodongos stopped twenty-five feet away. They opened their mouths and light flared inside.

"MOVE!" Bario ordered as he and all the Smashers except for Mario ran to the side to avoid what was coming. The Dodongos then unleashed a cone of fire, missing their intended targets…except for one. One fire wave flew straight at Mario who looked at it, unmoving.

"MARIO! MOVE!" Raichu yelled.

At the last second, Mario's cape flashed, sending the cone of fire shooting back at twice the speed it was going. It flew into one of the Dodongos mouth, and licked at its face, its eyes, shooting into the nostrils. The Dodongo let out one…small…screech, before exploding, in a blast far greater then that of the Babies. The blast sent the other five Dodongos rolling away.

"Wow…Mario, that was pretty cool," Diddy said.

"It's-a me-a Mario!"  
"Great, but let's not just stand here! Kill those Dodongos before they can recover. Their tails are vulnerable!" Bario said.

The Smashers nodded and dashed for the Dodongos, who were all struggling to remain conscious, as they were already weakened by the explosions from the Babies.

Bario slashed rapidly at the tail of one of the Dodongos as did Link to another. All the Smashers attacked the creatures, and as the Dodongos flashed they dashed away. All the Dodongos then exploded, leaving a blackened crater in the ground. King Dodongo, Gohma and Manhandla have not moved…

Falco looked over at the three massive monsters.

"What are they waiting for? What, are they like testing us or something?"  
"That's exactly what they're doing," Bario told him, "They're seeing what it would take to bring us down…or rather Ganondorf is. I have a feeling that he's watching this somehow and is just waiting to see our weaknesses and strengths. These creatures aren't here to kill us…they're here so he can kill us."  
"Well that's kind of creepy," Diddy said.

Before anyone could respond Gohma charged forward with an unexpected burst of speed. She scuttled rapidly across the floor and was three quarters of the way there before Samus raised her weapon and fired off a missile. Gohma raised her claw and deflected the explosion. Her claw shuddered and she shrieked and then she was upon them. She dealt Samus a vicious backhand that sent her flying and then tried to grab Kirby. Kirby slammed her claw with his hammer and Gohma squealed and dashed forward, hitting Kirby and Link with her armored body.

"Agh!" Link shouted as he was thrown roughly to the ground.

Gohma again reached out and tried to grab someone…Diddy. Before Diddy could be grabbed Raichu jumped in the way and fired a wave of electricity at Gohma. The electricity appeared to focus in the claw, before sizzling out. Gohma screeched and in one smooth motion with her damaged claw, grabbed Raichu and SQUEEZED.

"OW! OW OW OW OW!" Raichu yelled as the serrated edges dug into his flesh. Before he could be torn in two, Bario dashed up and in one smooth stroke with both swords, removed Gohma's claw. Gohma let out her loudest screech yet as her claw fell to the ground and vanished, releasing Raichu.

Bario raised his swords, prepared to deal the death blow, when Gohma opened her mouth and a stream of larva came out. They were small, clawless versions of Gohma, about the size of a fist. They had little stingers and they leapt onto Bario and began stinging him. Gohma scuttled backwards, nursing her injured claw.

"OW! Shoot, I forgot she could do that!" Bario yelled as he fell to the ground and rolled, squishing most of the larva. One tried to escape but Falco shot it.  
Before any one could recover from Gohma's surprise attack a cone of flame flew from King Dodongo's mouth The Smashers were only hit by the tip of it, but its sheer power was enough to send them all flying back. Before they could stand up Manhandla had charged forward and attempted to bite Kirby with one of its flowers, the red one, as Kirby looked the tastiest. Kirby ducked and struck the flower with his hammer, which sent a powerful shock through him.

"Shoot…Mario! You can get the red flower! You're wearing red!" Bario yelled.

Mario nodded and jumped at Manhandla, which was slowly spinning. Mario tried to jump over the creature, but it shot fireballs from each of its four flowers. One caught him in the chest, and he fell to the floor. Link then leaped forward and sliced off the green flower.

The flower fell to the ground and vanished. Link flashed a smile at the surprised Smashers who didn't see him sneak up on the plant, but then Manhandla spun and slammed its blue flower into Link's stomach. The flower was surprisingly strong and he was knocked to the ground.

"Link! Uh…I think I got it, Falco! Attack the blue flower, Mario get the red one!"  
"What me?" Falco asked as he ducked a fireball from the notably faster Manhandla.

"Yes you! You're blue…ish….so you can kill the blue flower!"

Falco nodded and charged his Fire Falco attack. Mario readied his hammer and at the same time, both Falco and Mario struck from opposite sides, destroying their respective flowers. Manhandla suddenly went into overdrive, as most of its weight was gone and it spun the purple flower around so fast it was a blur. Mario jumped over it, but Falco was knocked back.

"Great…only one part left, but who's got something purple?" Raichu asked as he looked at the Smashers…Samus…orange armor, Kirby…pink, Meta…blue…Bario…red clothes and…purple hair!

Bario grinned and slid under Manhandla's whirling flower. Figuring it moved to fast for him to accurately chop it he just raised his swords. The flower chopped itself off as it rammed right into Bario's blades. Manhandla gave a screech before vanishing.

Before the Smashers could congratulate themselves Gohma had charged forward again, forcibly slamming into Bario. He flew back and landed roughly on his back. Gohma opened her mouth and a stream of larva came out again…but before she could close it Link threw a round object inside. Gohma's eye grew wide as the bomb exploded, severely damaging her, but before any of the Smashers could follow through with the attack the larva were upon them, stinging. Following Bario's lead they fell to the ground and rolled, squishing many a larva, but then Gohma used her large armored body to slam Diddy and tried to hit Mario, before he jumped on top of her. She looked around wildly for the little red man, before discovering he was on top of her as his hammer slammed into her eye.

Gohma let out a vicious squeal and spun about crazily, trying to remove Mario. Mario hunkered down low on Gohma, right behind her eye and didn't move…

The rest of the Smashers had just finished with the larva, and were watching Gohma freak.

"We gotta help him!" Diddy said, pointing to Mario who was hanging on with what appeared to be everything he had.

"No…wait," Bario told them, "I think he's got this…"

The rest looked at Bario in confusion, before deciding that maybe he was right and they'd wait…for a little bit.

Gohma stopped spinning. She slowly opened her eye, trying to see if the man had fallen off. Not seeing him anywhere she fully opened her eye and started to turn…just as a hammer slammed into her eye again. She tried to close her eye, but the hammer prevented her armored lids from shutting. Mario, who was still on her back, then fired three fireballs into her eye. The fire charbroiled her eye, and Mario jumped off, just in time to watch her explode. Enemies, always trying to impress.

King Dodongo struck right then, while they were distracted. His powerful flame attack would have, if not killed then surely would have severely damaged the Smashers if Kirby didn't jump in the way and become a rock, greatly lessening the power as a large portion of the fire was deflected. Mario and Falco used their cape and Reflector to stop the rest and turn them back, although none reached the King.

Seeing that his flame assault was ineffective he growled and curled into a massive ball. He rolled forward at an astonishing speed and might have crushed our heroes…except for Kirby. Kirby was still in rock form and when the King went over him He lost control as the rock screwed up his balance. King Dodongo wobbled and turned…and slammed into a wall.

His massive body caused the wall to shake, but he was knocked to the floor and struggled to get up. Diddy fired several peanuts at the fallen creature, and was assisted by Falco's laser shots and Samus's missiles. King Dodongo shrugged off the attacks and got to his feet again. Raichu fired a bolt of electricity, but it fizzled out upon touching his apparently non-conducting flesh.

"How do we kill this thing?!" Raichu asked.

"As I said before he has practically impervious armor…we need to get him when he opens his mouth!" Bario yelled.

"But the only time he does that is...," Diddy started.

"Right before a fire attack," Raichu finished.

"Yep," Bario agreed.

By this time King Dodongo had recovered. He slowly turned around and looked at the Smashers. Kirby had returned to his original form and walked over to Meta and the others.

"I love you Mr. Potato Chip!" Meta told his sword.

King Dodongo decided to quit fooling around. He wasn't sure how they stopped his last flame attack, but he figured they wouldn't do it again. He opened his mouth wide and charged up the flame…

"Now's our chance! FIRE!" Bario commanded.

The Smashers heeded his instructions. Samus fired off three missiles, Mario shot off a pair of fireballs, Falco sent a few laser shots at his mouth, Raichu fired an electric ball, Link threw in a bomb and Diddy threw in an orange grenade. The sheer force of the attacks caused King Dodongo to stagger back. He closed his mouth to stop the pain, which amplified the explosions from the bombs. He let out a low moan, and started to shake…

"I think…he's going to blow!" Bario yelled, "RUN!"  
The Smashers ran. King Dodongo exploded just as they reached the far corner. His explosion put all the other explosions to shame, as it severely blackened one entire wall and left an enormous crater in the ground. As the explosion slowly died, a pink dust filtered through the room, healing the Smashers.

They got up and looked around, hardly daring to think that they finally won. The bars over the door they had not entered disappeared, but the other ones remained.

"Looks like there's no going back," Falco said.

"Right! It looks like Ganondorf is going to be throwing everything he has at us…but we can take him! Right?" Bario asked.

"RIGHT!" The Smashers yelled, or at least the ones that spoke in coherent sentences. In unison they walked towards and through the next door, and their next challenge…


	12. Those naughty shadow people

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Twelve: Those naughty shadow people, when will they learn?**

The Smashers walked through the door, expecting another large room and a difficult battle. Instead they were met with a long winding staircase. It led up perhaps twenty feet to a closed door, just like the ones before it.

"I guess we're going up," Bario said, "Come on!"  
The Smashers resolutely walked up the stairs and entered the door at the top. It led to an identical chamber as the one where they fought the massive monsters…but there were no great beasts in this one. Rather there were several strange looking people…

There were about…seventeen people in the room. They all looked slightly similar to Link…but there was something wrong with them. Twelve of them were identical to each other, they were a dark grayish black color, clothes and skin, but they looked like Link otherwise, with similar swords and shields. The other four were stranger. One was wearing green clothes, but they were a brighter green than Link's and his skin had a greenish tint. The same was true for one that was red, one that was blue and one that was purple.

The final person was also shaped like Link. This one was completely black, almost like a silhouette. But he was standing in that mysterious light that illuminated the rooms and it revealed no more of him. His sword and shield were also pure black and an aura of malice radiated from this one, like none of the others. Actually he wasn't all black. His eyes glowed an eerie red…

"Huh. These guys are really different then what I was expecting," Diddy commented.

"Yeah, they don't look that bad," Raichu agreed.

"Heh, looks like they have a Link fetish. Hmph, after what we've taken on before these guys should be cake!" Falco said.

"You idiot!" Bario snapped, with a surprising burst of anger. The Smashers looked at him in surprise, or at least most of them did. They noticed that Bario was shaking and looked very nervous. Link was quivering with rage as he stared at the strange people.

"What? What'd I say?" Falco asked in confusion.

"Sorry…just you have no idea what you're up against," Bario said.

At his words, the strange people seemed to smile…although if they did, it wasn't a pleasant one.

"Well, why don't you explain it to us then?" Raichu asked, trying to stay calm, although Bario's attitude was starting to freak him out. The Link people gave Bario a mocking nod, as if they were agreeing with Raichu.

"I hate these guys…," Bario growled, "They're all different…but the same basic thing. Evil clones of Link. The grayish ones are Shadow Links, weak versions of Link that have some of his sword and shield abilities, like his spin attack and bombs. They are pretty weak, but can overwhelm one of you if they surround you. They were originally from an evil object called the Dark Mirror. That was destroyed some time ago, so I'm not sure how Ganondorf managed to get some of them here," Bario informed.

As he said this the twelve Shadow Links raised their arms into the air and seemed to be proud of what Bario was saying as they nodded their heads. The other five evil Links clapped.

"I so very hate them," Bario said with venom in his voice, "The other ones are more dangerous. The Green Link has all the abilities of the Shadow Links, except he's stronger, faster, doesn't use bombs and instead uses an attack called the Pegasus Dash."  
"Pegasus Dash?" Raichu asked.

"Where he holds his sword in front of him and using magic shoes dashes forward at a high speed, hoping to impale his target. Fortunately he can only go in a straight line with that move, but it is surprisingly fast."

Green Link proudly waved his golden blade around. The Smashers noticed that the other colored Link's also had gold swords and large shields that covered most of their front.

"Yes, the gold just means it is a powerful blade, and the shields are Mirror Shields. They will deflect magical projectiles and make it very difficult to attack one from the front," Bario said. The Links seemed content to lie back and let Bario tell everyone how "great" they were, as they made no motion to attack.  
"Red Link can do everything the Green Link can, but can also use an attack similar to the Spin Attack, however it lasts for a while and it essentially turns him into a bladed cyclone for a bit. The Blue Link can do everything Red Link can, but can also leap into the air and crash down with his sword, trying to skewer someone. Even if he misses, the impact can temporarily stun someone near by. Purple Link can do all of the abilities of Blue and can shoot fireballs from his sword. He is far stronger and faster than the others. Occasionally when things get tough Green, Red, Blue and Purple Link can go invisible using an item called the Magic Cape. It will only last for a few seconds, plus you can see their shadow, but they can sneak up on you with that. They were originally evil incarnations of another person who went by the name of Link, many years ago, born when he used a magic sword called the Four Sword. Ganondorf must have somehow released them from their prison inside that blade," Bario told them.

The Smashers were starting to look slightly worried, after all this was a bit more than they were expecting…but it couldn't be any more difficult than anything else they've faced right? Diddy and Raichu were slightly confused…another Link? Something to ask him about later…

"The last one…is the worst. He has all of Link's abilities and items, Boomerang, bow and arrows, bombs, plus he's amazingly skilled. He fought Link's of different times and was always a vicious foe. Our Link has battled him twice. Once, on a mission to stop Ganondorf, and again when he tracked Link down at the Smash tournaments. He has no name, but I believe a fitting title for this…creature is Dark Shadow Link,"  
Before Bario's words finished echoing Dark Shadow Link nodded his head and the twelve Shadow Links charged forward. The Smashers were slightly surprised by the brazen assault, but quickly recovered and prepared to destroy the Shadow Link's and their foolhardy attack.

"Fire!" Bario commanded.

Acting like one unit the Smashers with projectile abilities attacked. Missiles, arrows, fireballs, shockballs, laser shots and peanuts all flew at the Link's. They blocked several of the weaker attacks with their small shields, but attacks like Samus's missiles managed to blow through the shields and Raichu's attacks traveled through the dark gray metal and zapped them. Once their defense was down the other Smashers targeted the stunned Link's. It didn't take much to destroy one, and when one was destroyed it vanished into a puff of black particles that flew quickly away to the north end of the room…by the time the Shadow Link's managed to reach the Smashers, there were only seven left…but by then they could fight back.

They immediately lit seven bombs and threw them at Link and Samus. Before either could react the Shadow Link's all charged up a spin attack and swung. Meta, Kirby and Falco were all struck by the attack and sent flying to the western wall. Samus and Link dashed away from the bombs, which exploded harmlessly behind them, but then three Shadow Link's threw bombs at Diddy, who wasn't expecting the attack. They all hit him in the face. He recovered fast and activated his jetpack, right before the bombs exploded. He was kicked high in the air because of the blast and landed roughly on the ground.

However that moment was when Mario and Bario struck. Coming from opposite sides, Mario first threw four fireballs. They vaporized one Shadow Link and as another brought its sword up Mario slammed it with is hammer, crushing it. The two Link's turned into black particles and flew away…

Bario was dueling with two of the other Shadow Link's. They both struck him at the same time, one high, one low. Bario parried the high strike and, using some impressive agility leaped onto the other's sword. His weight caused the Shadow Link to lose his grip and almost fall over. Bario gracefully jumped off the falling sword and landed behind the two Shadow Link's that he then skewered in the back, causing them to disintegrate as well.

The remaining three Shadow Link's looked determined and began some crazy bomb-throwing action. They formed a triangle and launched bombs like mad at the Smashers. They ducked and dodged, but Meta, Diddy, and Falco were all hit directly, and the rest suffered damage from chips of the exploding ground hitting them.

"Why don't they run out?!" Falco yelled to Bario as he ducked another bomb.

"I don't know! They must be using magic!" he responded while rolling.

"You know what?! Forget dodging!" Falco said. He stopped running away from the bombs…and ran towards the Shadow Link's. Seeing him charging toward certain doom the three Shadow Link's smiled and all threw a bomb at him. Falco grinned, stopped…and turned on his Reflector.

The bombs hit his blue hexagonal force field, causing it to flash white…and sent the bombs plummeting back at nearly twice the speed they were going. The Shadow Link's were unable to dodge their own bombs which exploded as soon as they hit the Shadow Link's. They burst into black particles and flew away. Bario and the Smashers saw the particles fly…right into Dark Shadow Link!  
"NO!" Bario yelled, "Crap, he's trying to get us to kill the weaker ones so he can power himself up! We have to kill him!"  
The Smashers nodded, but then had to dodge a fireball flung from Purple Link's sword. Green Link then came rushing through with his Pegasus Dash, not stabbing anyone but smacking Meta with his shield. Green Link, with Meta stuck to his shield moved rapidly through the chamber until Green Link slammed Meta into one of the walls.  
Bario growled as Red released his Hurricane Spin Attack, moving around like a blood-red buzz saw. He tried to evade the attack, but he got nicked in the side, drawing blood but not severely injuring him. Bario tripped from the blow and fell to the ground. Red stopped spinning and prepared to unleash the killing blow to Bario, who was trying to get up, when Bario's arm flashed. Red parried the sword just in time to prevent himself from being all…stabbed and stuff, but by then Bario was up and angry.

"I'm angry!" he said.

Blue Link and Purple Link were watching Green pull away from the wall, and then duck a swing from the not very injured Meta. Green sliced then and Meta parried. Meta then used the force from Green's swing to be pushed against the wall. Green grinned, thinking he had Meta trapped when Meta suddenly yelled.

"Tasty chickens are in the fridge!"

The loudness and randomness of the yell surprised Green and he took a step back. At that moment Meta flew up into the air and made a diving slash at Green who barely blocked it. Meta may be tougher than he looks…

Blue looked at Purple who nodded. Nodding back Blue suddenly leapt into the air so fast he seemed to vanish. Diddy and Raichu who were watching Purple and Blue, curious as to why, after Purple's initial attack, they weren't doing anything. When Blue vanished they let out a surprised yelp. Soon however they noticed a rapidly enlarging shadow over them. They looked up just as Mario tackled them, barely avoiding Blue's sword slam that would have cut right through Diddy and Raichu.

Mario quickly flipped to his feet as Blue glared at him, as if he was angry for preventing his kill. Diddy and Raichu were stunned, as they were just saved from a rather painful death by Mario. Mario pulled out his hammer just as Blue swung. Mario slammed his sword with his hammer and shot a fireball at Blue. Blue used his shield to reflect it, but Mario ducked and attacked Blue's shield with his hammer. Blue's shield held strong, but he was being inexorably knocked back. He tried to stab at Mario again, but Mario countered by slamming into the sword with such force that Blue lost his grip on it. Mario then smashed Blue's shield, and Blue lost his balance, falling to the floor.

Mario was about to deal the finishing blow when a fireball from Purple sent him sprawling. Blue quickly got to his feet and grabbed his sword. Mario twisted around and glared at Purple, who had sneaked up behind him. Purple smirked as Blue joined by his side. Mario got to his feet and prepared to attack when he saw something behind Purple that made him pause. Raichu with his hands up, and something forming above him. Quickly Mario realized that he'd have to distract the Link's while Raichu did whatever the heck he was doing, as it would probably be good.

Link and Samus had gone over to Meta who was trying to break through Green Link's defenses. Link grabbed a bomb and threw it at Green Link, but he used his Pegasus Dash to escape the explosion. Samus fired four Power Beam shots at Green but he used his shields mirror like capabilities and reflected them back, one heading towards Meta, another at Link and the remaining two flew straight towards Samus. Meta used his sword to deflect the energy ball and Link used his shield. Samus fired two Power Beam shots at her own attack in order to prevent it from hitting her.  
Green Link growled and prepared to fight, when Diddy called over to Meta, Samus and Link.

"Hey! Try and get back over here with us! We've got an idea!"   
Deciding the Link's would be easier to defeat together Link, Samus and Meta broke off their attack and joined up with Mario and Diddy who were about to face off against Blue and Purple. Green stared at the three in confusion before joining up with Blue and Purple. Dark Shadow Link watched all the proceedings with a strangely satisfied grin…

Kirby and Falco were trying to help Bario with Red Link, but Bario and Red were locked in vicious combat. Bario was considerably faster and more skilled, but Red's shield was providing him adequate cover. Seeing an opening Falco shot off a laser at Red. It hit him in the back of the head, distracting him. Bario tried to do a double slash, from both sides but Red then did his Hurricane Spin Attack. Bario, Falco and Kirby all leaped out of the range and tried to evade the deadly assault. Right about then they heard Diddy's call and joined with the other Smashers, leaving Red rather upset. Then Red saw the other Link's and joined his comrades.

By the time both groups were together eight of the Smashers were standing between the Link's and Raichu who was pulsating with electricity. When the Link's saw him they realized something very bad would happen if they let him do whatever he was trying to do. So as one they all did a Pegasus Dash. Kirby pulled out his Cutter and made a shockwave, stopping Green and Red. Blue and Purple kept coming until Samus and Link fired several bombs in their path. They stopped to avoid the explosion. Green tried to dash again but Meta flew forward and sliced at Green. Green blocked the attack, but was sent flying backwards from the unexpected assault.

Purple seemed to send an unspoken message to Blue and Red and together they all unleashed a Hurricane Spin. Link, Samus and Diddy all fired attacks at Purple, eventually breaking through his attack and stunning him. Falco jumped in front of Blue and just before the attack hit he activated his Reflector, stunning Blue long enough for Falco to kick him in the face, knocking him into Green. Mario used his cape against Red, sending him spinning back towards Purple. Red managed to stop the attack but he still rammed into Purple reasonably hard.

Green and Red, already, severely damaged struggled to get up but Blue and Purple seemed to be fine as they glared at the Smashers with blazing eyes. No one noticed a black cloud building up above the fighters…except for Dark Shadow Link who watched with wary interest…

Purple and Blue both appeared to vanish. Expecting them to come crashing down from above the Smashers didn't notice when they appeared in front of Link and slashed twice. He barely blocked the attack with his shield and struck, but by then they had jumped out of his range.

"What was that?!" Falco demanded.

"I guess they used their Magic Capes. They can't attack when they have those on, but they can perform sneak attacks…," Bario said.

At that time Blue and Purple vanished again. Not sure what to expect the Smashers warily glanced around, but even so Diddy and Kirby barely dodged the two's jump attacks. While the Link's tried to pull their swords out of the ground, Mario and Kirby slammed them with their hammers, sending them flying into Green and Red who had just managed to get back up.  
Before either group could follow through with anything a crack of thunder boomed through the room. All the fighters looked up as they saw a massive black thundercloud, practically spewing electricity…and it was right over the Link's. Their eyes grew wide, but they had no chance to escape as a massive blast of lightning flew down from the cloud and zapped all of the evil Link's. In the next split second six more equally powerful bolts zapped down. After the impressive light show the cloud dissipated and all that was left of the Link's were black particles…that flew off and were absorbed into Dark Shadow Link.

Diddy looked over at Raichu, who appeared slightly drained but fine.

"Hey, that was awesome! I didn't know you could do that…," Diddy trailed off looking at Raichu who seemed puzzled, "Are you okay?"  
"What? Oh…yeah I'm fine. Fine," he repeated, seeming slightly confused.

"Is something-" Diddy started to say before Bario interrupted.

"Talk later, kill villain now," He said gesturing to Dark Shadow Link who was walking slowly towards them, dark energy literally oozing from him. The air around him was warped and twisted. He stopped about twenty feet from the Smashers and grinned, or at least he appeared to grin. He was entirely black, so it was difficult to read his facial expressions.  
"Raichu…can you fight?" Bario asked. Raichu nodded and moved up to join the Smashers.

Dark Shadow Link raised his sword above his head. The Smashers tensed, expecting a horrible attack. What they weren't expecting was Dark Shadow Link to plunge his black sword into the ground. Shadow oozed from the impact point. Eventually it split into eight shadow puddles. The Smashers stared with confusion…and a hint of fear as the puddles moved to within six feet of each Smasher…except for Link.

"What are these-YAAARGH!" Falco yelled in shock and surprise as a black…something oozed up from the puddle. It was an action repeated by the other seven puddles.

Emerging from each of the puddles was a black shadowy version of all the Smashers. Except for Link, as his Dark self was standing in front of him, silently laughing at his handiwork.

"Well, I have to say. I was expecting him to do a lot with all the power…but not this," Bario said as he stared at his Dark self. Something all the Shadow Smashers seemed to have in common was flaming red eyes…and a pure black complexion.

"What now?" Falco asked, just as his double suddenly pulled out a pure black laser pistol and fired a red laser at Falco. Falco ducked…and the battle was on.

Each Smasher moved off from each other in order to battle their evil double alone, except for Diddy and Raichu, who stuck together. The only words that were exchanged were Bario's advice just before he and Dark Bario engaged in battle.

"Alright, I have a feeling these guys should be capable of some of your basic moves, so be careful-YAH!" he yelled as Dark Bario struck.

Raichu was battling alongside Diddy against their alternates. Diddy's seemed capable of firing peanuts and using powerful tail moves and Raichu's could shoot electric balls and use some basic electrical attacks. Raichu ducked a peanut shot from Dark Diddy and used an electrical spark to zap him. Dark Diddy seemed stunned, but that thought was wiped from Raichu's mind as Dark Diddy's tail whipped by and slammed Raichu in the face, knocking him down and rolling him. Diddy, who was avoiding being shocked by Dark Raichu cried out in fear for his friend…and in that moment he was zapped and kicked by Dark Raichu. The two evil creatures advanced menacingly on the two fallen heroes.

Meta's Dark self was confused. Meta wasn't following the patterns or styles that he used to have. Master Hand created all the Dark versions of heroes, or at least he had villains in that particular world do it for him. Necessary, was a basic knowledge of the hero's capabilities and styles that was then imbued into the Dark self. Ganondorf's creation, Dark Shadow Link is an old Dark self, kept alive by Ganondorf's powerful magic, and after every battle with a Link Dark Shadow Link became smarter and tougher…even if he lost. Shadow Meta (Not to be confused with Dark Meta, another evil creature) was trying to anticipate Meta-Knights moves, but not only were they very different (it was almost like he was a completely different person) but his continuous random ramblings severely unnerved Shadow Meta. Meta's personality seemed to have completely changed as well…

Mario was angry. He had a large amount of pride, and a creature using his moves and proclaiming itself as a version of him made him angry. It was bad enough that Bowser Jr. impersonated him as Shadow Mario on that island vacation a few months back, but this Dark Mario was even worse! Mario slammed Dark Mario with his hammer, but Dark Mario deflected it with an identical, albeit black hammer and then fired a red-orange fireball. Mario smacked it with his hammer and it vanished. He punched at Dark Mario but he jumped over the attack, and came down trying to kick Mario in the face, but Mario grabbed his leg, dropping his hammer. Mario used his classic swing throw, where he spun Dark Mario around rapidly before letting go, with extreme force. Dark Mario however merely rolled upon hitting the ground and sprung up, apparently avoiding injury. This guy might be a little difficult…

Samus opened up with a missile barrage at Shadow Samus (Not to be confused with Dark Samus, one of Samus's arch-nemeses). Shadow Samus countered by rapidly strafing around Samus and firing multiple Power Beam shots. Samus went into her Morph Ball form and used her Boost Ball ability, where she charges up energy and then releases it, enabling her already speedy ball to shoot forward at a high speed, excellent for ramming. Shadow Samus jumped over the speeding ball and fired several missiles at her, but Samus was traveling to fast to be hit. Samus unrolled fifteen feet away from Shadow Samus and both stared at each other warily, noting that neither had managed to cause any damage…

Kirby was struggling against Dark Kirby. Kirby took the initiative by sucking him up and then tried to absorb an ability from him…but he already had the same moves than Dark Kirby. So Kirby spit Dark Kirby out, who promptly did the same thing to Kirby. After Kirby was spat out they both tried to use the Cutter on each other but the attacks canceled each other out. So they then tried to smack each other with their hammers…but those attacks canceled out as well. There was only one thing left to do. They both turned into rocks.

Bario was irritated. His Dark self was successfully parrying every strike he dealt. True, he was doing the same to him but still! Annoying! Bario tried to sweep at Dark Bario's legs with one blade, and then he swiped higher with the second anticipating Dark Bario to jump over the first strike. However Dark Bario had already correctly guessed what Bario was doing and back-flipped out of harm's way. He then charged up a dark purple energy ball which he threw at Bario. Bario sliced at it with his swords, causing the ball to dissipate. Bario then spared a glance at the other Smashers, as if he was worried that one of them might have seen. Seeing no one watching Bario focused his attention back on Dark Bario.

"Oh you are SO going down! Super Stab!" Bario yelled, a strange light pulsating on the edge of his blade for a second…a dark purple light. What Bario missed in his cursory sweep of the arena was Mario, who always watched his surroundings. Mario with a calculating look in his eyes as he battled his Dark self…

Falco ducked as Dark Falco flew over his head using Falco's favorite move, Fire Falco.  
"Agh! Don't use my abilities!" Falco yelled as he Falco Phantasmed right after Dark Falco landed on the ground. Falco slammed into him at incredible speed, and then while Dark Falco was trying to recover Falco used his Fire Falco and blazed through Dark Falco, causing massive damage. Dark Falco struggled to get up and Falco, panting hard as those moves were quite draining still managed to walk over and turn on his Reflector, zapping his evil self. He then pulled out his pistol and fired three shots. Dark Falco turned it back though by activating his Reflector and having Falco's shots rebound and slam him in the chest. Dark Falco staggered to his feet, favoring one arm.

"So…still got some fight left in you eh?" Falco asked tiredly. Dark Falco nodded, and at the same time they charged for each other.

Link readied his sword and shield. Dark Shadow Link glared mockingly at Link. Amazing how he can accomplish that considering the only part of his face that has any features is his eyes. Dark Shadow Link pulled out a pitch black bow and fired an identically colored arrow at Link. Link merely blocked it with his shield. Dark Shadow Link, seemingly unperturbed pulled out a black boomerang which he threw at Link. Link ducked and watched the boomerang, to make sure it didn't hit him in the back of the head. What he didn't see was the bomb thrown by Dark Shadow Link. He didn't even notice it until he heard the sizzling of the fuse. Looking down in surprise he kicked it harmlessly away. He looked back at his foe, only to be smacked by the now returning boomerang. Temporarily losing his focus, Dark Shadow Link dashed forward and stabbed at Link, who either by skill or luck blocked it with his shield. Link recovered and tried to make a counter stab but it was parried by his evil self. Dark Shadow Link and Link struck at each other then, and their swords met with a resounding clash that somehow was louder than all the other sounds in the battlefield. Their swords locked, they glared at each other, faces inches away. Bright blue eyes radiated anger at his enemy, anger for his evil, who he worked for and everything he stood for. Bright red eyes radiated cool, calm dispassionate malice. It wasn't like he hated Link for anything he's done…rather he hated him for existing, irrational as that may sound. Finally they broke free, deaf to everything around them except for each other's heavy breathing and blind to all but their trembling foe. They raised their swords…

Diddy and Raichu got up, spared a glance in the other's direction and nodded. They remembered why they were here. They were fighting to rescue family and to stop those who would cause the innocents harm. They were here to defeat evil, and maybe become stronger for it. As one they moved, Raichu ducking under Dark Diddy's peanuts and Diddy using his jetpack to fly over the shockball thrown at him. As Diddy came down Raichu dashed forward and touched the tip of his lightning-bolt to Dark Diddy's head. Dark Diddy's red eyes grew wide as Raichu shot several thousand volts of electricity through his superconductor tail and almost instantaneously fried Dark Diddy. The evil monkey exploded into nothing. Dark Raichu's eyes twitched as his attention was focused on the defeat of his comrade, so he didn't notice Diddy use his jetpack to fly over Dark Raichu's head. He pulled out his peanut pistol and fired shot after shot at Dark Raichu as he plummeted down. The evil mouse was distracted and when Diddy landed solidly on his head he fell to the ground. He tried to summon some electricity, but Diddy clubbed him with his tail three times, before wrapping it around Dark Raichu and throwing the rather light mouse hard into a wall. Like Dark Diddy he exploded, signifying his defeat.

Shadow Meta frantically blocked Meta-Knights attacks. In desperation he struck the air in front of him in an X pattern, hoping to break through Meta's offensive onslaught. Meta however leapt into the air, his wings spreading wide.

"Eckert! You are an ECKERT!" Meta claimed.

Shadow Meta growled and took into the air, and their battle continued…only in three dimensions, not two. Shadow Meta stabbed forward at rapid speed, but Meta just lowered his altitude, confusing Shadow Meta and then struck at his enemy's feet. Shadow Meta blocked it with his sword and struck down. His attack was parried and with a deft twist of Meta's arm, Shadow Meta lost his blade. He looked at Meta, black hand's raised, confusion and terror emanating from his eyes. He hoped that Meta, being a hero, would deal out mercy. He soon found out he was wrong about that as well, as he was stabbed through where his heart would have been. Shadow Meta exploded and Meta-Knight slowly floated to the ground.

Mario deflected a hammer swing from his duplicate and then followed it up with a cape swing as Dark Mario struck again. Being forcefully spun around he looked where he thought Mario would be in confusion. Hearing something, he wheeled about, only to get a faceful of fireball. As he tried to stop the pain Mario dragged his double into a Mario Tornado. Dark Mario was battered brutally by Mario's spinning arms. As the attack stopped Mario grabbed Dark Mario and threw him in the air. Before Dark Mario could recover, Mario used his Super Jump Punch (The attack used on Bowser). The attack created temporary gold coins that appeared whenever Mario smacked his foe. Mario grabbed them all and on the way down from the attack he threw all the coins at Dark Mario. Although they vanished on contact, the nine gold coins caused severe damage. Dark Mario tried to stand and fight…but Mario finished him with a hammer swing.

Shadow Samus and Samus both charged at each other, arm cannons blazing. Each shot fired intercepted another. Shadow Samus expected Samus to jump or roll right before they hit and prepared to aim accordingly. Shadow Samus was not expecting Samus to keep running and tackle her to the ground. Shadow Samus fell roughly and tried to get up but Samus slammed her in the helmet with her arm cannon. She did that two more times before jumping up and pumping six missiles into Shadow Samus. Shadow Samus still barely survived so Samus charged up a Charge Shot and blasted her with that, ending her persistent foe.

Kirby soon found out that his becoming a rock and Dark Kirby becoming a rock wasn't really doing a whole lot in the advancing the battle thing. At the exact same moment Kirby and Dark Kirby changed back to normal and engaged in a vicious hand-to-hand fight. Kirby did a rapid fire punch combo that Dark Kirby blocked, and then he kicked at Kirby using his pointy feet. Kirby jumped over the blow and spun around smacking Dark Kirby with his limbs. Dark Kirby punched at Kirby as soon as he came down, but Kirby grabbed Dark Kirby's hand and threw him to the ground. He then proceeded to jump on him and bash him repeatedly with his pointed feet. Dark Kirby tried to get up…but Kirby turned into a rock over Dark Kirby, effectively finishing the fight.

Bario used a move that hasn't been seen before, his "Super Stab". He stabbed at high speed with his swords over and over. Dark Bario tried to deflect some but the sheer power and speed overrode his defenses and he suffered numerous small cuts. He back-flipped away from the pain causing barrage and Bario stopped, panting heavily. Dark Bario seemed to smirk and he charged up another purple energy ball. Bario growled and threw his swords at Dark Bario. Dark Bario wasn't expecting the attack and the swords sliced right through him. He looked at Bario in the eyes, but the cold glare he got in return wasn't what he was expecting. Dark Bario exploded and Bario calmly walked over to retrieve his blades.

Both Falco and Dark Falco met in midair and, grappling with each other they fell to the ground hard. Falco managed to get on top of Dark Falco and proceeded to bash him the face. Dark Falco managed to get his feet under Falco and kicked, sending him up in the air. Dark Falco prepared to smack him as soon as he came down, but Falco activated his Fire Falco, slamming into Dark Falco. Dark Falco fell to the ground and struggled to get up when Falco jumped over and kicked him in the head. He then pulled out his pistol and fired numerous shots into his foe until he died.  
"I really don't like people who copy my moves."

Link and Dark Link were continuing their heated fight. Link and Dark Shadow Link clashed swords again and again. Link slashed, Dark Shadow Link parried. Dark Shadow Link stabbed and Link dodged. Finally they met again, swords pressed hard, apparently at a stalemate when Link raised his pointed Hylian shield and stabbed at Dark Shadow Link with the point. Dark Shadow Link blocked it with his shield but by then Link had the initiative. He sliced with his sword and Dark Shadow Link blocked it, and then Link slammed Dark Shadow Link in the head with his shield. The blow rang throughout the chamber and with a second strike Dark Shadow Link fell to his knees, sword and shield forgotten. Link looked in the eyes of his enemy…looked deep into those blazing eyes and saw. He saw a creature that not only caused trouble for him twice before, but worked for a man who by his very nature was evil. And Link knew. One way or another, his life would forever be altered. He didn't know whether the event that would change his life forever had already happened, or if it would happen soon or even if it was happening now. But it would happen. And so that's how Link dealt the death blow to Dark Shadow Link, the final death blow, because Link knew for some reason or another Ganondorf would not be bringing him back. He stabbed Dark Shadow Link while looking into the hated eyes of his evil self. Link's sword cut through Dark Shadow Link's chest and silently the creature exploded, bathing all the Smashers with pink healing dust. Link stood there, sword in the same position for nearly thirty seconds before snapping to attention and joining the Smashers by the newly unbarred door.

They all seemed slightly tense, as if confronting the very darkness in their hearts was unsettling or something. Several appeared like they wanted to say something, but they gave up before the words left their mouths. Diddy looked at Raichu, thinking about asking Raichu why he was confused about the super lightning attack he did, and they both wanted to ask Bario about the past Link's. However the one thing all the Smashers wanted to do was to get out of this chamber. Maybe then questions could be asked and answered. Bario just nodded in understanding and led them through the door, and whatever challenges Ganondorf might throw at them…


	13. Wizzrobes whizzing

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Thirteen: Wizzrobes whizzing with the wacky wonderful watchful wafting wary witty…Aganihm. **

The Smashers were slightly tired. Not physically tired, the healing they received rejuvenated them quite well. What they had done so far wasn't to big a deal for Link, Kirby, Meta, Samus, Diddy and Mario as they all had at the very least been on several adventures this long, maybe more. Falco, who spent his journeys usually in the cockpit of a starship wasn't used to this kind of fighting, but he was seasoned for battle. Raichu, had journeyed far and battled much, and while never actually being in a type of outing like this he at least was able to hold his own. Bario…was an enigma.

None of the Smashers really seemed to comprehend how little they knew about him. That was most likely because they did know some things about him, and those were probably more important than his past or motives. He was friendly, patient, quite knowledgeable…yes; he'd make a great hero. They all believed this was his first time on a long adventure like this. But he did seem to be doing remarkably well for an inexperienced adventurer…

Regardless, the battles were difficult and they seemed to have increased in difficulty when they arrived in Hyrule. They were mentally and emotionally drained and as they left the Shadow room and entered another room with a spiraling staircase Bario decided they needed a break.

"Hey…before we climb those stairs and face whatever Ganondorf throws at us, I thought you might want to ask some questions, that you had before," Bario said, looking pointedly at Diddy and Raichu. Realizing that they were taking a short but much needed break the Smashers immediately stopped.

"What? Oh…," Diddy said as he realized what Bario was talking about, "Raichu, you ask him the question about the Links, and then I have a question for you."

Raichu nodded and prepared to speak, while several of the Smashers looked at him confusion, wondering about what the "Links" are.

"Uh…before you said something about there being other Links, like you said Dark Shadow Link had fought with other Links…what did you mean?"  
Bario looked surprised by the question, but quickly realized that it was a decent one, as not everyone knew Hyrule's rather bizarre history.

"Ah…I guess that would be a good question. It's actually kind of simple, if a bit strange. According to certain books I have read about Hyrule's history, Ganondorf was born a long time ago perhaps hundreds of years, but I personally doubt that, it was probably only a hundred to two hundred years ago, as the "King of Thieves," referring to the Gerudo people. He was the only male to have been born a Gerudo in a century. Because of that he became King of them. But King of a city of thieves wasn't enough for him…oh no."

As Bario told Ganondorf's history, Raichu, Diddy, Falco and Kirby all listened intently, never knowing this about such an evil creature. Mario and Link listened, but with an air of tedium, as if they've heard it all before. Samus feigned disinterest, but it was obvious from the way she leaned forward to catch some of Bario's words, that she too was listening. Meta of course just quietly mumbled nonsense to himself. Bario continued.

"Ganondorf used his army of Gerudos, his basic magic skills and the abilities of two powerful elemental witches, Koume and Kotake, to attack the kingdom of Hyrule, and through that eventually reached the Sacred Realm. Many tried to stop him, but they were unable to as he was already very powerful. When Ganondorf reached the Sacred Realm he tried to seize the Triforce, an immensely powerful mystical item, but his evil will caused it to shatter, giving him the Triforce of Power, and sending the Triforce pieces of Wisdom and Courage to Link and Zelda."

At that Raichu looked questioningly at Bario and interrupted.

"Wait…I thought you said this all happened a long time ago…how was Link around then?"

"I was getting to that. Back then both Link, and the Princess Zelda, who was the princess of this castle before Ganondorf took over again…I wonder where she is now…anyways, their ancestors back then were also named Link and Zelda, and they managed to stop Ganondorf. Every once in a while he'll escape from his imprisonment, but another Link, usually with another Zelda will stop him."  
Diddy nodded as a lot more made sense now, but was still curious about one thing.

"Why are they all named Link and Zelda? Do they not have a lot of names to choose from?"  
"No, they just name them that in remembrance of past heroes. It's an honor type thing."

"Ah…," Diddy said.

Bario looked around at everyone before saying, "Well, does any one else have any questions?"

Diddy thought for a second…he had something he wanted to ask…oh yeah!  
"Raichu!" Diddy exclaimed. Raichu turned to look at the monkey. "Before when you did the lightning thing…you looked confused after it…why?"

Raichu looked at him, puzzled, before realizing what he meant.

"Oh! You mean my Thunderstorm attack! Yeah, the reason I was so confused was because it was WAY more powerful than it was last time I used it, plus it drained a lot more energy from me. I was just surprised by that."

Bario surprised everyone with what he said next.

"I think I know the reason for that."

Raichu wheeled around and fixed Bario with an interested and surprised look.

"You do? How? What?"

"Well, I think this may interest everyone…but I believe that we're somehow growing stronger after each fight we get in. Maybe we're just getting more experience as combatants…but I think we might absorb some of the power from the villains we kill, and that sort of…powers us up a little bit…maybe."

The other Smashers looked at Bario with shock…and agreement. Obviously he had noticed the slight jumps in power and skill and had been thinking of a reason for a while. However, while it may have been rational and very likely, some of them didn't like it.

"I'm not sure I like the idea of having those…creatures become part of me," Raichu said, with a hint of disgust. Diddy and Falco nodded their agreement.

"Now wait a minute!" Bario said, surprise evident in his voice, "I didn't say anything about them becoming part of us, just some of their power! We're not like getting their minds or thoughts or anything like that! Plus, don't forget, I could be wrong."

Raichu looked at Bario and slowly nodded his head.

"Okay…I still don't like it, but it's not like any of us could do anything about it…and it may be helpful."

Everyone else nodded, but whether they were agreeing with Raichu about not liking it, or Bario for accepting it wasn't clear.   
"Well, I think that covers everything…are you all up for whatever is going to attack us next?" Bario asked.

They all answered his question by vigorously nodding their heads. Bario smiled and charged up the stairs, with the Smashers right behind him. He slammed into the door at the top, bursting it open. He and the Smashers charged in, a battle cry on their lips…that quickly died as they saw what was in the room.

There was nothing. The chamber looked mostly similar to the last two, but there were no terrible monsters, no evil beings. Just two doors. The one they came in through, which quickly slammed shut and barred as soon as all nine were in the room, and another, equally barred door at the opposite end of the rectangular room.

"Uh…where is-" Falco started before being cut off by a "Shh!" from Bario. When Falco shot him a questioning look Bario answered by saying, "I think I heard something."

As Bario said those words, there was a faint rustling noise, like dry leaves across the ground…or the sound of a cloak moving. The rest of the Smashers heard it as well, and faced the barred door across from them. At first there seemed to be nothing there, but slowly, oh so slowly something seemed to be forming. A large, humanoid shape was slowly coming into view…

Suddenly the shape stopped flickering and became abruptly solid. It was revealed to be a large, apparently human, man, wearing a large red cloak that covered all but his eyes and hands. His visible skin was a light blue and his hands had pointed nails, almost like claws. There was a large purple eye on the cloak, although what it signified was unclear. This man, upon appearing began laughing in a most evil way.

"Uh…Bario…who is that?" Diddy asked.

Before Bario could respond, the man answered, although how he heard the question from the other side of the room is perplexing.

"I am the great wizard Aganihm. And it is so nice, to be presented with such…entertaining people. Really Link, do you think these mortals will entertain me for long? Oh but you…you will be most enjoyable to destroy, I've wanted to kill you for a while now."

Link looked at Aganihm in confusion.

"Ah," Aganihm said in a deep, malevolent voice that seemed to slightly echo in their minds…almost as if he was in and out of their psyche, "That's right…you never battled me. How unfortunate, I was most looking forward to killing the one who killed me…twice. But alas, my old mind plays tricks on me, and I forget that you are different. No matter, this will still be a worthwhile endeavor."

Aganihm appeared as he would ramble on but Bario interrupted.

"Dang it! Guys…prepare to fight Aganihm, a wizard who helped Ganondorf out a while ago. He's supposed to be invulnerable to all weapon strikes, so I guess try and blast him with special moves."

Rather than being upset that he was cut off from his evil rambling, Aganihm seemed rather amused.

"Ah yes! Feel free to plan away. It won't do you any good, oh no!"

"And just why is that?!" Falco demanded, irritated at Aganihm's apparently unshakeable nature.

"Well you see…I have some help this time…yes…help."

The Smashers looked at Aganihm in confusion…there was no one with him, when fifteen beings suddenly appeared in front of Aganihm. They wore long rows and tall, pointy hats. Five of them wore green, five wore blue and five had red clothes. The red ones hats flickered as they were covered in flame. The blue ones sparkled and shone, as they were made entirely out of ice. Their faces were covered in shadow, and only their glowing white eyes were visible.

"Uh…Bario…what are those?" Diddy asked nervously. Something about these creatures freaked him out.

"Yes Bario, tell them! Tell them everything! You know they won't survive!" Aganihm cackled.

"Shut up!" Bario shouted with surprising venom. Aganihm stopped cackling in shock, and glared warily at Bario.

"Sorry, I just really don't like him. Anyways, those are Wizzrobes. The green ones shoot energy blasts, while the Fire Wizzrobes, and not surprisingly shoot fire and the Ice Wizzrobes can shoot ice. They all have the ability to teleport, but physically aren't to strong. A few good whacks will take them out."

Aganihm had appeared to have had enough of the waiting around. With a few gestures, the Wizzrobes turned around and blasted a ball of energy at Aganihm. He collected it into one massive ball, which formed into a glowing white shield around him. The Wizzrobes then turned and fired fifteen blasts. Five energy waves, five fire, and five ice. All fifteen flew towards the Smashers at a frightening speed.

The Smashers didn't waste a second. They all dodged out of the way, with only a few getting nicked by the edges of the attacks. Before the Wizzrobes could realize they missed, missiles, peanuts, laser shots, fireballs and thunder balls flew at them. Several Wizzrobes managed to teleport away, or deflect the attacks, but three Green Wizzrobes and a Fire Wizzrobe were killed.

The Smashers had no time to celebrate as a Fire Wizzrobe teleported over to behind Falco. It blasted before he had a chance to realize it was there. His clothes caught on fire, but he rolled rapidly and the flames went out. He yanked out his pistol and fired three times, but only one shot grazed the Wizzrobe before it teleported again.

An Ice Wizzrobe teleported behind Mario, hoping to smack him as Falco was smacked. However Wizzrobes make a distinctive "ding!" noise and when Mario heard it he back flipped over the ice attack and landed solidly on the Wizzrobes head, killing it.

Aganihm watched the battle intensely. His shield would hold as long as the Wizzrobes survived. The Smashers mostly seemed to reacting to what happened. They were on the defensive, and even though five Wizzrobes had been killed, the remaining ten were causing problems. Plus, Aganihm had some more tricks up his considerably long sleeve.

Bario whipped his head around, trying to anticipate the next attack. A Green Wizzrobe appeared in front of him and he slashed at it, cutting the creature in half, but an Ice Wizzrobe that appeared behind him at the same time managed to blast him with a ball of ice. Bario fell to the ground and groaned. The Wizzrobe seemed emboldened by its success and prepared to fire again, when Meta's sword removed its head from the Wizzrobe's body. Meta then flew off. Bario got up and instead of looking at Meta, he flashed a glance of what almost appeared to be gratitude in his purple eyes to…Mario of all people.

Diddy flew up in the air, with his jetpack. That way he could see if any of the Wizzrobes were sneaking up on someone. He'd only be able to stay up for a little bit, but he already saw two Wizzrobes. He shot peanuts at one attacking Kirby and one attacking Link. Once stunned the respective heroes managed to destroy them. However the last Green one soon found Diddy and shot a blast at him. Diddy was hit and fell to the ground mostly unharmed, although his chest hurt from where it slammed into the ground. He angrily spun around, but the Wizzrobe was already gone.

With only six Wizzrobes left, they decided to change to hit and run strategies. They all appeared in one corner of the room and fired six balls of energy, ice and fire. The Smashers dodged and kept dodging as they sporadically appeared, too far away for the Smashers to retaliate. Soon the Wizzrobes had herded the Smashers into a tight clump.

The Wizzrobes appeared around them in a hexagonal shape and fired. The Smashers had nowhere to run, and they quickly realized that. Kirby turned into a rock in front of a blast of fire, while Link used his shield. Meta and Bario used their swords to deflect the attacks, while Mario and Falco returned an ice and a fire attack back at a Wizzrobe, destroying it, with their Cape and Reflector. In this manner all six attacks were rendered harmless.

The Wizzrobes were temporarily stunned that their master plan had failed…and that was when Raichu, Bario, Link and Samus leapt forward and quickly destroyed them. Aganihm let out a groan of annoyance as his shield flickered and died. He fixed the group of heroes with a glare of defiance.

"Give it up Aganihm! You won't be able to beat us!" Raichu said.

Aganihm smirked.

"Oh, I'm not through yet! Attack!"

The Smashers stared at Aganihm as if he was out of his mind…there were no enemies left…or were there? A loud noise, like the sound of a moron laughing echoed through the room…and then eight new Wizzrobes appeared. At least, they looked sort of like Wizzrobes.

"Why are giant toucans wearing robes?" Diddy asked.

The new creatures had the head of a bird with a large beak, and wing-like arms that carried a wand. They floated above the ground, five wearing red cloaks and three wearing yellow. Aganihm seemed quite pleased as his new companions spread out around the Smashers.  
"Grr…Look's like he's got some Red Wizzrobes and Yellow Wizzrobes. The Red ones can shoot balls of fire, and the Yellow Wizzrobes can summon weak enemies," Bario said, appearing exasperated more than anything else.

"Summon?" Diddy asked, apparently not to excited by the prospect.

"Yes, summon! ATTACK!" Aganihm said again.

The five Red Wizzrobes did their moronic laugh again before firing three fireballs each in an expanding pattern. The Smashers rolled and deflected, but Samus and Kirby both got hit pretty hard.

The Yellow Wizzrobes cackled again and then each one did an annoying summon. One summoned a swarm of bat-like creatures (Keese), six Keese were normal and there were four Fire Keese. Another summoned to birds with interesting feather design (Kargarocs) while the final one summoned what looked like twenty spiky black balls with a large red eye (Morths).

"Dang it! Guys, I don't have any real good advice right now, except to kill the Yellow ones first!" Bario yelled.

The Yellow Wizzrobes were still cackling when an arrow shot through one of their heads. The creature let out a noise that almost sounded insulted before exploding into black powder. Link smiled at his pointy handiwork. The Red Wizzrobes vanished, but the remaining Yellow Wizzrobes angrily shot several fireballs at Link. He pocketed his bow and raised his shield, deflecting most of the blows, but a pair of Keese slammed into his legs and he fell over, and got slammed by a fireball.  
The fire went out quickly, as magical fireballs usually blaze in an instant before dissipating, but the Wizzrobes didn't seem inclined to stop there. They hit him with two more before Samus blew one of the Wizzrobe's to pieces. The final one tried to teleport away, realizing how much danger it was in but Mario jumped up and slammed it with his hammer, snapping its neck and killing it instantly.

The Morths dived at Kirby, who inhaled three. He tried to absorb powers from them, but they merely disintegrated in him like powerless creatures usually did. Several stuck to him…about seven. They weren't pointy, just their green spiky-looking tips were sticky. Kirby tried to move when he realized the weight of the creatures were dragging him down, making him barely able to move. One each was on his arms and feet and the other three were on his body. He tried to walk, wave his arms, anything…but soon he couldn't even stand and the heavier than they looked creatures brought him to the ground.

The remaining ten Morths looked around for another victim…and saw Raichu trying to blast one of the Kargarocs with a ball of electricity. The bird was staying just out of Raichu's reach and shrieking. Raichu growled and carefully aimed when a blackish ball leapt at his face. He growled and tried to brush the Morth away…and it _stuck_. Slightly surprised but not yet scared he tried to tear it off, but for some reason his hands just slid off the creature. He felt its surprising weight, and it seemed to get heavier as the seconds slid by. Suddenly he felt five more attach themselves to him, one on each arm and leg and the fifth on his long lightning bolt shaped tail. He soon befell the same fate as Kirby. The Kargaroc looked at him and quickly dismissed him as not a threat. Big mistake.

Raichu growled and quickly did one of his most useful little abilities. He coated his furry body in electricity. Small sparks shot out, and his fur stood up on end…although considering it isn't very long, it wasn't very noticeable. The Morths still clung on despite the change in Raichu's fur, but that wasn't much of an issue. Raichu increased the amplitude until soon…all the Morths were fried. Relieved of his burden Raichu stood up and fired an electrical ball at the annoying Kargaroc.

The ball missed and the angry bird spun around in the air. It screeched and dived at Raichu, hoping to slice him with its razor-sharp talons…when four peanuts slammed into its head. The Kargaroc yelped in surprise more than pain, before slamming roughly into the ground. Raichu took this opportunity to zap the Kargaroc. It wasn't a very strong creature, and soon it perished. Diddy jumped over, smiling, as he raised his pistols, looking for something to shoot.

Kirby still struggled to get up but although the Morths seemed small and light they appeared to possess a magic that he couldn't beat. He just hoped someone came to his rescue eventually…

The remaining Kargaroc was working with the Keese, making dive-bombing runs at Link, Samus, Mario, Bario, Meta and Falco. The five were shooting off the persistent creatures and avoiding all but the smallest scratches and bruises. The beings they fought obviously weren't very intelligent as they never changed their strategy and it was obvious that the Smashers would soon kill them all rather rapidly. Something that was not obvious was when Meta suddenly broke off from the group and ran off.

"Cotton is affordable!" he gleefully shouted as he ran away.

"Where's he going?!" Falco asked.  
Meta was going right towards Kirby. The four surviving Morths were near Kirby and when they saw Meta they dived for him. He sliced them all to pieces before they got close. He flew into the air, and with a few deft stabs, skewered all the Morths. Kirby, relieved of their bizarre weight got up and thanked Meta with an "Okay!"

Bario sliced the final Keese in half. All of the minor enemies were gone and the nine Smashers regrouped to find out where the Red Wizzrobes had gone. It didn't take long for the Smashers to see that they were floating by Aganihm who seemed most displeased by the amount of damage they had wrought to his mystical forces.  
"I am most displeased by the amount of damage you had wrought to my mystical forces!" Aganihm exclaimed.

"What's a 'wrought'?" Falco asked.

"You fool! It is a…uh…a…oh just prepare to die!" Aganihm cleverly said, "Wizzrobes…kill all but the one clad in green, he's MINE!"

The Wizzrobes nodded and fired their fireballs at the Smashers, breaking up the group. They teleported around and fired rapidly, until all but Link were herded away from Aganihm. However Meta suddenly shot several energy balls from his sword that nicked a Wizzrobe attacking him and he managed to burst from their herding techniques. When the Wizzrobe tried to get him back with the others and away from Aganihm, Bario burst out as well and ran with Meta to Link. The Wizzrobes were prepared to try and bring them back, but a command from Aganihm cut them short.

"Don't worry about them! I'll take care of them. You worry about THOSE six."

The Wizzrobes nodded and started firing their triple fireball attack, not with the intent to herd but with the intent to harm now. While Samus, Mario, Falco, Diddy, Kirby and Raichu dodged and attacked and evaded and struck the real battle was about to start as slowly Meta, Link and Bario edged toward Aganihm, wary of his power.

"Ha! You mortals don't stand a chance against me. I once housed Ganon inside my person! I was his speaker, and his enforcer! You are all NOTHING! DIE!" Aganihm shouted before firing off four small blue energy balls that were attached by some invisible magic.

They spun through the air, and flew over to Link. He prepared to dodge, but the blast landed four feet in front of him, cleanly missing. Link looked at Aganihm…surely his aim couldn't be that bad?  
"Dang it Link! MOVE" Bario shouted.

The blue ball that was in front of the procession shattered…and with that, sent the other three flying towards Bario, Meta and Link. Bario and Meta managed to avoid it, but Link was caught b surprise and was really close. The ball slammed him in the head and knocked him to the ground. Already severely weakened by the Yellow Wizzrobe's attack Link drifted in and out of consciousness.

"Ha ha ha! Is that the best the hero of time has to offer? Pathetic!" Aganihm said.

Bario growled and ran forward, slicing at Aganihm. Aganihm laughed and appeared to try to do something…but when he was unable to he looked confused, and later hurt Bario's swords slammed into his legs. Aganihm yelped and backhanded Bario, sending him back a few feet. The wizard looked at his attacker with confusion.

"What? How…?"  
"You're not escaping from this one!" Bario said.

Aganihm looked at Bario with new respect and a tinge of fear. However he soon had to dash to the side to avoid another attack from Bario. Meta flew forward and slashed at him as well. Aganihm raised a temporary magic shield and blocked the attacks, but the shield shattered after that. Aganihm suddenly raised his hands and fired off a swarm of lightning bolts that threw back Bario and Meta, while at the same time seriously injuring them.  
"I'm not out of tricks yet!" Aganihm said, with a hint of his old amusement.

"It'll take more than tricks to get you out of this!" Bario said as he got up and charged again.

Meanwhile the rest of the Smashers were finishing up the last Red Wizzrobe. The creatures really weren't designed for sustained combat. Diddy used his tail to slam it at Falco who used a series of kicks to snap its neck. With all the Wizzrobes gone, they turned to face the combat against Aganihm. Several of them wanted to dash over and help out but Samus stopped them.

"Stop. If we go over there, we'll only get in the way. Aganihm's magic works best against multiple targets, so as long as we stay out of it, it should be okay," she said in her rarely used voice.

Several of the Smashers jumped as they weren't used to her speaking…but maybe she was just getting used to them.  
"Does any one else notice something strange?" Falco asked.

"Yeah!" Diddy replied, "Aganihm isn't teleporting around…why is that?"  
None of them had any answers.

Aganihm shot off several energy balls at Bario, but he deflected them back at Aganihm. He then yelled in pain as Bario drove his swords into his stomach.

"You're done Aganihm, it's over!" Bario said.

However instead of looking upset at the fact of his imminent death, Aganihm actually smiled. "No…it's not!" He said as he fired an orange energy ball at point blank range, sending Bario flying.  
Aganihm then stood up, albeit shakily and suddenly his outline dimmed. He seemed to split into three Aganihms which fired off multiple energy balls at Bario and Meta. Meta countered by shooting some back from his sword, but they were blocked by the swarm of attacks coming his way. Bario took off running, and Meta took off flying, dodging and deflecting attacks. They came together and sliced right through the right and left Aganihms…literally through! They were just illusions. Suddenly each of the "illusions" blasted Bario and Meta. Apparently they were illusions that could hurt.  
"Ha! You thought I was done for didn't you? You will soon realize that I can't be stopped! I am Aganihm the Dark Wiz-Agh!" Aganihm said as a sword appeared in his chest.  
The illusions disappeared and Aganihm slowly turned his head to see Link, with his sword piercing his heart.

"That makes…four times now, hero…," Aganihm said before exploding into the healing dust. The barred door opened as well.  
The Smashers stared at Link, who hesitatingly put his sword and shield away, while also looking at them embarrassed. They then, as one gave a rounding applause for the hero. That, if anything served to make him look more embarrassed, but at least now he was smiling. Bario then directed them to the door, but before they left, Diddy asked him a question.

"Great job out there Bario…but why wasn't Aganihm teleporting when you were fighting him? That would have made him way tougher."

Bario seemed strangely uncomfortable about the question, but answered it anyway.

"You guys saw that? Well…I know some basic magic skills and I thought I'd try out one. That one prevents enemies from escaping, and I guess it worked pretty well."  
That statement seemed to surprise several of the Smashers, except Meta, who obviously doesn't care, and Mario who looked at Bario with calculating interest.

"How much do you know?" Raichu asked.

"I'm not sure what I'm capable of…but don't worry, I'll do my best to help us out until we get to Master Hand," Bario said.  
The answer seemed to satisfy many of the Smashers and deciding that there was no point in waiting around, they entered the door…


	14. Terrible twin twosome

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Fourteen: Terrible twin twosome traverse and travel through the twisting, turning, tumbling, tasty...air. Title: Twinrova.**

Following the surprisingly difficult battle with Aganihm, the heroes went into the next area…and were unsurprised to find a spiraling staircase. They climbed it, noting that they have been continuously going up, and several were starting to wonder just how high Ganondorf's tower was…

The first to reach the top was Kirby, and using his pink spherical body, he shoved the door open. He dashed in, followed by the rest. They rapidly spread out upon entering, backs to the wall, as the door slammed shut behind them, trapping them inside. Each raised either weapon or fist and faced the new terror that dared to confront them…

Two beings floated in the shadows of the end of the room. Their shapes were vague and bizarre, and no one present could quite determine what they were…until a distinctive cackle echoed and Link's eyes widened in recognition.

The cackle echoed, harsh and grating and caused several of the Smashers to wince. It seemed to be coming from everywhere. Because of the nature of the laugh, it was difficult to realize that it was not from one throat, but rather two, in perfect sync. Bario narrowed his eyes and shouted out loudly, stopping the laugh as it grew ever more piercing.

"Stop! Reveal yourselves!"

The laughs stopped, but an aura of barely concealed malice still emanated from the shadowed figures. Two glowing lights came out from the top of their strange shapes, banishing the shadows that shrouded them. The figures quickly became visible as two large old, green women, floating on broomsticks. Yes, broomsticks. The two lights were large, almost hair like objects. One of the lights was a bright blue, and looked like a thick pointy ice cone. The other's flickered and twisted, and was seemingly red flame.

Several of the Smashers stared in confusion at the two old hags. One had a red jewel in her forehead, and the other had a blue one. Sure, they were ugly and kind of creepy, but they didn't look that tough…so why was Link, and now Bario, as he recognized them shaking with anticipation…and trepidation?

The two hags laughed again, but quickly stopped and eyed the Smashers with interest, lingering on Link, Mario…and Bario.

"Welcome! It seems you brats managed to get all the way here," started the one with a blue jewel.

"But this is where your journey will end!" finished the other one.

"I am Kotake!" said the blue-jeweled hook-nosed witch.

"And I am Koume!" said the other.

The two cackled again and started flying in a circle in their half of the chamber. Diddy flashed Bario a look, as if to ask him what the heck was going on. Bario caught the look and cleared his throat.

"Uh…those two…creatures…out there are very powerful witches. Kotake wields powerful ice powers, and Koume uses fire spells. They are vulnerable to physical attacks, although it can be difficult to hit them what with their floating and all. They are completely invulnerable to nearly any elemental or magic attacks…except for their opposite. Koume is weak to ice and vice-versa."  
At that Bario seemed to pause, as if wondering if he should go on, or just have everyone start attacking.

The witches solved that problem by suddenly screeching and flying at the Smashers. They dodged the attack, and the witches cackled maniacally. They flew towards the top of the chamber. Koume created a large ball of fire in her hand and flung it at Link, while Kotake summoned a similar ball of ice, firing that at Bario.

Link raised his shield, causing the fire ball to dissipate, while Bario dodged. Where the ice hit the ground, it froze, creating a slippery surface. The witches cackled again and charged up another attack…at least until Koume was smacked in the face by a pistol shot. Startled she and her sister looked at Falco in confusion, as if wondering how someone could be brazen enough to attack them.

"Jeez! Don't you ever shut up?" Falco asked, "I've known you for like, two minutes and already I hate you."

The witches hissed and glared at Falco.

"How dare you strike me!" screeched Koume.

"You impertinent brat! I shall freeze your soul!" shouted Kotake.

"And I shall burn you to the bone!" finished Koume.

They unleashed a torrent of magic elemental balls. The Smashers dodged several, and deflected more, but wherever the flaming balls hit, they created patches of burning floor, and the ice balls froze the ground, making it very slippery, and freezing cold.

The Smashers did not just dodge however, as whenever they got a chance, the ones capable of firing projectiles returned the witches "kindness". However, the twins were fast and managed to dodge most of those attacks as well…and their spells had a considerably larger blast radius.

Bario slashed at a fireball heading his way, destroying it and frantically thought of a plan…anything that would stop the sorceress sisters. He ran past Mario, who just shot three fireballs at Kotake. Kotake flew past most, but one smacked her in the arm and her robe caught aflame. Screeching in pain, but more in anger she shot a blast of ice at it, putting out the flame. Mario glanced at Meta…just as he launched himself into the air, wings spreading wide.

Koume was to busy attacking Link, Samus and Falco to notice the winged warrior come up from behind her. She cackled as threw a particularly close shot at Falco, who she decided she definitely did not like. Her cackle was cut short though, when Meta sliced the end of her broom off. She let out a yelp as it plummeted to the ground, and she would have slammed into it if Kotake did not dive and grab her. Koume's broom hit the floor and shattered.

Koume opened her mouth to thank her sister, when Kotake's broom dipped lower. Quickly realizing that the broom was not strong enough to carry both of them, Kotake brought them to the ground where they got off…and were quickly surrounded by the Smashers…

"Alright you scum, surrender!" Bario said.

The sisters looked at each other before laughing.

"Surrender? To you?! So foolish!" Koume said, shaking with mirth.

"We're far from defeated!" Kotake exclaimed, quivering with ill-natured humor.

Diddy looked at Raichu in confusion. Either they were going crazy…or these witches had something up their sleeves. Link looked at Bario, and Bario returned the glance.

"Crap!" Bario said, "Attack!"

Bario and Link leapt before any of the other Smashers got a chance to respond. Before they reached the witches, a blast of magical energy caught them in the chest and flung them at their allies.

"No!" Bario said, scrambling to get out of the tangle of legs and tails he found himself in.

"Now sister!" Koume said.

"It's time for our ultimate attack!" Kotake responded.

"Sorceress Sisters Double Dynamite Attack: Twinrova!" they said together.

The two sisters were surrounded by a blinding light that flashed from icy blue-white, to flaming red-orange. The Smashers covered their eyes as the ground surrounding the area where the witches stood became covered in ice, only to rapidly melt. When the light faded…the sisters were gone…

And a new creature stood in their place. It was easily twice the size of the witches, and they were quite large to begin with…meaning it towered over the Smashers. It maintained the same green skin, but looked very young, like a woman in her prime…and there was no doubt that the creature was a woman. She was scantily clad and clutched two torch-like objects, one flaming, and the other with a large chunk of ice. Her "hair" was split into two ponytail-like parts, one flaming, and one frost. This new creature…Twinrova…tilted her head back and laughed.

"Shoot…I was really hoping that this wouldn't happen," Bario said.

Twinrova raised her fire torch and shot a blast of fire at Falco…not a ball of fire, a large beam of it. He turned on his Reflector, but the sheer power of the attack shattered it. Falco fell to the ground, stunned.

"That will show him," Twinrova proudly stated, seemingly ignoring the fact that she caused no actual damage to Falco.

She raised her ice torch and prepared to fire when Link shot two arrows at her. One hit her stomach and the other skimmed past her face. She yelped and angrily turned her attention towards him, when Raichu hit her with a ball of electricity. She quickly realized that trying to take them on one at a time would not work very well, so she flew into the air.

Samus shot off four missiles but Twinrova used fire magic to blow them up prematurely. She then sent a blast of frigid ice at Samus. Samus jumped to the side and fired again. Twinrova dashed away, and glared at the Smashers.

"Curses, I was hoping that I would be able to defeat you easier like this…but it looks like I have to go into plan B…Flame Mode!"   
Her Ice Torch disappeared, and the Flame Torch seemed to be absorbed by her body. Her two hair things merged together into one long flaming ponytail as her whole body took on a red sheen. The chamber flashed red and suddenly small pools of lava opened up, creating a treacherous battle ground.

"Let's see you survive this!"

Twinrova followed her unoriginal statement by summoning a swarm of Fire Keese and sending them at the Smashers. They quickly destroyed the weak creatures, although they had to carefully watch their step, and the chamber was getting uncomfortably hot.

Twinrova growled and proceeded to shoot off several fire beams. The Smashers dodged or deflected, but the attacks were fast and powerful and several suffered minor burns. Diddy almost fell in a lava pool before Mario grabbed him. Diddy tried to thank the plumber but he was already jumping towards the witch.

Twinrova didn't notice Mario, too busy she was in trying to shoot down Meta, the one who destroyed one of her brooms. Meta was flying around her, stabbing or slashing occasionally. Twinrova shot blasts of fire, but since he was so small and speedy compared to her, the attacks didn't even come close.  
Mario was soon behind the witch and with one final leap he went high in the air. He almost sent some fireballs at her, sort of to pave the way, before he realized that shooting balls of fire at a red witch with amazing fire proficiency was probably not a good idea. So he settled for slamming her in the back of the head with his hammer.

The blow made a resounding crack as it smashed her skull. She let out a silent whimper and slowly started floating towards the ground. Mario reached the apex of his jump and was coming down when Twinrova suddenly spun around and blasted him with a wave of fire. He flew across the room and slammed into the wall. The flames went out quickly thanks to the speed he was traveling and his fire-resistant clothing, but the power of the impact left him struggling to hold onto consciousness.

"It'll take more than a hammer to stop me!" she cried as large flaming balls surrounded her and flew at the Smashers.  
Falco shook his head, finally recovering. He took a look around and was slightly confused as the arena was changed. He quickly leapt to his feet when he realized he was but inches away from a pool of lava. He then had to quickly leap away as several balls of fire landed around him.

Twinrova cackled as she maliciously played with the Smashers, just barely missing with her attacks…until a fully charged power beam blast smacked her in the face, followed by one of Link's bombs. Stunned and severely hurt, she stopped her barrage long enough for Diddy to use his jetpack to fly up to her and slam into her stomach with his head. He then gracefully landed on the floor.  
"Agh! You fools...that really hurt…I mean, do you think those feeble attacks are enough to stop me?!"  
Bario opened his mouth but Twinrova answered her own question.

"Well it's not! Time for Plan C! Ice Mode!"

A blinding blue flash lit the area, and when it was gone the pools of lava were gone…instead the entire chamber was covered with ice. The floor was freezing and the temperature in the chamber had dropped considerably. Twinrova was now a light blue, and her ponytail had become a large chunk of ice.

The icy floor was slippery and cut back on traction. However the floor was most dangerous for Raichu and Diddy, as they had no protective items on their feet. They were forced to constantly move so that their feet weren't frozen to the ground. It didn't take long for their feet to become quite numb.

"Let's do this fast!" Diddy said.

Twinrova seemed to not like that idea as she summoned three spiky ice balls, which she threw on the ground. Using blasts of ice she sent them ricocheting across the room at a high speed.

"Ha! Let's see you survive this, Icicle Fall!" she cried as dozens of large icicles rapidly grew, and fell from the ceiling.  
"Not good!" Raichu yelled as he jumped over an ice ball and slid past a shattering icicle.

As if the area wasn't deadly enough, Twinrova started firing blasts of ice at the Smashers. She froze Kirby in a solid chunk of ice, and followed up by freezing Meta. Link, Samus, Falco, Diddy, Raichu all tried to hit her with projectiles, but Twinrova had learned from previous attacks and moved around the room at a high speed. Also adding to the difficulty of aiming was all of the dangers moving around the room that prevented the characters from standing still long enough to hit her.

Link was soon sent into a corner, holding his arm and leg as one of the spiked ice balls hit him. It shattered, but Link was undeniably injured. Samus was leaping to avoid an ice blast when an icicle hit her in the back, propelling her into Diddy, and causing them to slide into Raichu and the second ice ball. All three were unable to get up.

Twinrova cackled as she picked off the Smashers one by one. At least she was cackling until Falco slammed into her hard with a Fire Falco attack. Screeching she froze him and he feel to the ground. She panted heavily, trying to recover as Bario used his swords to destroy the third ice ball. She turned her attention towards him and raised her hand to fire a blast of ice when five fireballs hit her from behind.  
"Woohoo!" Mario yelled as he leapt onto the screaming witch and gave her a swift kick in the face. She fell backwards…right under a large and pointy icicle. She had just enough time to look up before it penetrated her forehead, killing her.  
Contrary to how they first met her, she died quite silently, exploding into the pink dust and returning the room to its normal dungeony self, unfreezing everyone and healing all their wounds and physical exhaustion.

The Smashers exchanged little words, but many grins as they knew they were one step closer to the completion of the quest, and they all exited swiftly, anxious to end this adventure, through the now unbarred door. Mario and Samus were the last to leave, and before she left she looked at Mario.

"I heard you say 'Woohoo' back there, and I have to say…it's good. You've been far to quiet since Yoshi died, and it's good to hear you say something again…you are a hero Mario and heroes should be inspirational. I'm glad you're healing."  
With that surprising and awkward statement said (She had obviously not had a lot of time to prepare it), she went through the door, leaving Mario blinking in shock, before smiling and joining the rest.


	15. Onox and Veran

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Fifteen: Onox oscillates and originates overkill, while Veran ventures venomous vengeful verbal abuse. And so ends the awful, annoying, aggravating…Agh! Alliteration! **

The Smashers walked through the next area, another small room with a long spiraling staircase leading to a non-descript door. The excitement of battle was starting to wear thin, and although morale was still high, they were quite happy to savor the time before their next life-or-death battle, and to look forward to finally defeating all the baddies and return home. Little did they know how far they were from completing their quest…or how dangerous the enemies they had to face would become…

The nine companions entered the next room, which was essentially the same as all the previous rooms they had been in and like the last room, two beings waited for them. However these two seemed considerably more dangerous than previous foes…

The first one was very large. An unnaturally tall and broad man, covered almost entirely in gold and dark gray armor, he had pointy toed gold shoes, that would have looked ridiculous on anyone else…on him they just heightened his fearsomeness. He wore a tall pointy helmet and in his massive gauntleted hands he carried a gigantic spiked mace that looked large enough to crush a normal person.

Next to him stood a person who seemed extremely bizarre as she looked completely different from the armored terror. A tall woman, although not as tall as the beast that loomed next to her, she would have been beautiful, despite her teal skin, if she didn't radiate an aura of sickening evil. She wore a strange hood that came over one side of her head, and covered most of her red hair. Beneath that she had on what could only be described as a "top", as it revealed more than it covered. She also had strangely massive shoulder pads and pointy spikes on her elbows. She wore the lower half of an elaborate dress, which covered her entire body below the waist.

Both of these beings were quite obviously evil, but evil in different ways. The armored man had an atmosphere of barely repressed almost bestial violence about him, while the scantily clad woman seemed sneaky and manipulating, like a snake, if snakes were capable of sentient thought. Both however looked with scorn at the Smashers, as if their previous accomplishments meant nothing to this duo.

"Bario…let me guess, big, bad and really good at causing pain?" Diddy asked.

"Yep…the tall guy is Onox, who can shoot tornados as well as bash people with his mace, and the woman is the sorceress Veran, with teleportation and energy ball attacks…"

The tall man spoke then, as Bario trailed off, in a massive booming voice that carried the unmistakable promise of bones being shattered.

"So you know me? You know of Onox, the General of Darkness? Interesting…"

The woman decided to speak as well, in a voice that was tantalizing, alluring, tempting…and incredibly dangerous.

"Yes, interesting, for I Veran, Sorceress of Shadows have never heard of or seen you before boy…but considering you'll be dead in minutes I doubt that matters…"

"Do you have any idea how many people have said that in the last two days?" Falco asked, "More than enough…and not one of them had been able to stop us, so I don't think you'll be any different, you wanna-be tin-can, and you old hag who isn't nearly as pretty as she thinks she is," he said scornfully to Onox and Veran.

Onox seemed to grow with anger, if that's even possible and flung several small tornados at the Smashers, powered by the force of his rage. Veran's face grew hard and furious and she fired a stream of magic energy balls at them as well.

The attack was surprising in its suddenness, but the Smashers had dealt with faster and more dangerous attacks, so it wasn't hard for them to dodge the assault. Falco fired several pistol shots at Onox, but the armor he wore caused Onox to not even notice. Onox did however decide that Falco was entirely too tall. So he swung his massive spiked ball at Falco.

Falco ducked and it whizzed over his head…jeez! The range he had on that thing was incredible. Falco didn't have time to reflect on that, as Onox was now bringing it down in a vertical swing. Falco rolled away and the mace slammed into the floor, creating a deep indent. Onox growled as he yanked it up and looked for the bird. He had to refocus his attentions though, when Kirby smashed him in his head with his hammer.

While Kirby covered Falco, Samus shot four missiles at Veran. She laughed and teleported behind Samus and hit her with an energy ball. Samus was knocked down, but the attack didn't seem to damaging. She was tricky…but not that strong. Veran laughed again and prepared to blast Samus when Bario dashed up and slashed at Veran. She saw him coming and teleported away, but didn't hit Samus. Bario helped her up while Mario and Link looked around for the witch.

They didn't have to spend a lot of time looking as she appeared behind them and fired an expanding ring of reddish orange magic balls that smacked both and caused them to fall to their knees. As he fell Link threw his boomerang behind him, and it clipped Veran in the side. Crying out in the sudden pain she teleported again…

Onox punched Kirby and sent the lightweight flying, and seeing Veran in trouble, he threw his mace at Link. Mario, seeing the attack dove and tackled Link out of the way. Onox grumbled about missing when Meta flew over and slashed at him. Onox's armor protected him, and he retaliated by rapidly bringing his mace back. The spiked ball flew towards Onox…and smashed into Meta's masked face, which caused the mace to fall to the ground.  
Onox had little time to celebrate his small victory when Meta was sent careening into his head. The blow seemed to stun him, but Meta looked knocked out. Diddy then cart wheeled over and grabbed Meta, to protect him from Onox's retaliation. The armored warrior came to pretty quick, and tried to aim a kick at the fleeing monkey when Falco landed several kicks on Onox's midsection.

Onox grinned at the feeble attack and flung a kick of his own at Falco. Falco was trying to get feeling back in his leg as hitting the armor seemed to have numbed that area, when Onox's booted foot slammed him in the side of the head. He was sent flying…and sank into unconsciousness.

Bario finished checking Samus (she was fine) and was looking around for Veran. Link and Mario were also frantically searching…but it was Samus, who was still on the ground who spotted her…the sorceress had teleported behind Bario…a ways back and she was charging up a spell. Samus decided to do something…something explosive…

Link had his Bow out, figuring it would be easier to hit her with that than his sword when a missile erupted from Samus's arm cannon. Mario, Link and Bario tracked the projectile…and watched it slam into Veran. She squealed and disappeared again…and she looked severely injured…

Onox looked around for his next victim, and saw Veran getting attacked. He began to head over to the Smashers who were fighting her when he caught a small mouse-like creature running towards him. He swung his mace at Raichu, but he dashed to the side and the flying ball of metal barely missed him. Raichu then leaped for Onox.

Onox blinked and looked down. Was that it? Because…he didn't feel anything. He stared, confusion etched in what little of his face that was visible. Raichu looked up.

"Bye." He said.

He then fired every bolt of electricity he could at Onox. The metallic armor he wore conducted the attack and Onox quivered and shook as volt after volt hammered him. He managed to focus long enough to pry Raichu off of him and throw him to the ground. Onox then started panting heavily, trying to move.

Raichu rolled when he hit the ground…but it took every ounce of his strength not to fall unconscious. He looked up at Onox who was still twitching a bit as the electricity finished zapping him. Onox then let out a cry of rage and raised his black mace above his head.

The spikes shattered and the metallic dust they created flew around Onox and expanded. They formed a grayish six-foot tall and two-foot wide crystalloid object that floated in front of him. Onox flashed an evil grin at Raichu before magically sending all of the electricity out his armored body and into the crystal. It seemed to absorb the electrical current and became a light translucent blue color that floated in front of him.

Onox lowered his smaller, spike less metal ball. It seemed considerably lighter and even though Onox didn't have a problem swinging it before…now, it seemed he would be even more dangerous with it. He looked at Raichu and aimed his ball…when Diddy came charging for Onox.

Veran reappeared behind Mario, Link, Bario and Samus. They didn't see her at first, at least not until she started glowing. Samus leaped up and fired four missiles at her, but Veran blocked them with some kind of shield. The other three spun, but quickly realizing that attacking would be useless…at least for now.

Veran became covered in a glowing light, that despite its white color it remained evil looking in some indefinable way. As the light grew to blinding levels and everyone except Onox closed their eyes, it faded. And standing where Veran was, was a massive light bluish-green fairy like creature. As large as Onox, this new Veran had wings and looked considerably more dangerous.

As Bario raised his swords, Mario readied his hammer, Link prepared his projectiles and Samus aimed her Arm Cannon, Veran just smiled. Smiled…and waved her hand. Four creatures that were about the size and shape of Link, except for their glowing red eyes and completely black bodies appeared, in front of each of them.

"I thought we already killed you morons," Bario said.

Before anyone else could respond Veran laughed and pointed a finger at them.

"Attack," she calmly said. The Shadow Links charged.

Diddy ran at Onox, and still several feet away Diddy leapt at him, pulling out his peanut guns and fired away. All of them were deflected by his armor, but they did distract Onox. Right before Diddy landed on him the crystal moved. Not much, but enough for it to be in between Diddy and Onox. As soon as Diddy touched the light blue crystal an electric charge passed through him and sent him flying.

"Diddy!" Raichu yelled, incredibly guilty, as it was his own power that caused that to happen.

"What…did you like him little mouse? I'm going to have fun crushing him…right after I'm done with you!" Onox said.

Raichu stood up and fired a bolt of electricity at Onox. The crystal moved in front of the attack and absorbed the attack. Before Raichu could retaliate the crystal moved again…to let Onox throw his mace at Raichu. He tried to dodge but he was tired, and the attack was far faster. He got slammed hard in the chest and was sent flying.

He landed roughly on the ground fifteen feet away from where he was attacked. Onox reeled in his ball and chain and walked with great big plodding steps toward Raichu. He raised his mace again for the final blow as Raichu looked up at him with bleary and barely open eyes…he thinks that last attack may have broken a rib, not that it matters now, when death was at hand…

Bario ducked and rolled, hitting the knees of the Shadow Link before it ran into him. He slashed at it and the feeble, weaponless creature died. Mario easily destroyed his with a fireball and Link removed the head of the one attacking him. Samus just fired a missile at the Shadow Link that charged at her.

Veran looked upset when her minions were killed, but she looked even more upset when an arrow flew at her. She flew up, but the arrow still penetrated her side. She screeched and the arrow disintegrated, leaving a small wound. She didn't have time to whine about it as Samus started charging up a Power Beam shot and Link fired his boomerang at her. Veran smacked it with her hand, sending it back at Link. As he reached out to catch it she fired a large magic ball at him. He didn't have time to move and got slammed hard.  
As Link fell to the ground and Veran cackled, Mario fired three fireballs at her. Frowning in disapproval she fired a ball at them as well, and it vaporized the fireballs, and would have smacked Mario if he didn't roll just out of the way. While Veran was distracted with Link and Mario, Samus fired her fully charged attack…

Onox threw his mace down at Raichu…but just before it hit, a thick wooden hammer smacked into it, sending it slightly off course. It slammed down, only a few inches away from the mouse and Onox turned to see who would dare try and stop him. It was a little pink puffball, standing only a few feet away, and carrying a massive hammer far bigger than it.  
Onox sneered at the creature he had already beated and summoned three tornados and flung them at Kirby. Onox didn't get to see the results of his handiwork through as four laser shots pelted him from behind. He angrily spun around, his mace going with him, and it just barely missed Falco's head. Onox growled and whipped it at him again.

Falco ducked and fired again, wary of getting too close. Kirby, having avoided the tornados ran at Onox but stopped abruptly when the crystal moved in front of him. Onox grinned, knowing it was only a matter of time until victory was his…until Meta flew over his helmet and slashed over the crystal and connected with Onox's head. Sparks flew and little actual damage was caused…but Onox was starting to look worried as three fighters stood against him…

Veran squealed as the massive energy ball burst against her side. Temporarily losing control she fell to the ground. Bario, seeing a chance ran up and slashed her. A large cut opened on one of her legs, but she kicked out with that leg, catching Bario against the jaw and snapping his head back.  
Veran flapped her wings and took off…but on her way up she grabbed Bario by the throat and carried him up with her. Link aimed an arrow but Samus pushed his bow down.

"NO! If you shoot from this angle, you may hit him! Wait!" she told him.

Bario struggled; his swords fell from his hands and clattered on the ground. He tore at Veran's grip, but her new form was to powerful. His legs kicked uselessly at the air, as his air began to dwindle. Suddenly he grabbed at Veran's arms. There was a brief flash and she screeched and let him go. He fell ten feet to the floor and rolled, grabbing his swords and breathing heavily. Veran glared at Bario in confusion and anger…and dived.

Onox flung his mace, along with three tornados at his foes. Meta flew over the attack, Falco and Kirby both rolled out of the way. Falco ran up and tried to physically attack Onox, but the crystal moved in front him and Falco barely managed to avoid getting zapped.  
"We're not going to hurt him as long as he has that crystal!" Falco said as he leaped away from Onox's returning mace.

Kirby nodded and dashed forward. Onox grinned at his foolishness and threw his mace. Kirby rolled and it skimmed over his head. Kirby pulled out his hammer. His thick…wooden hammer. Onox's eyes widened and he yanked his mace back…but it was too late. Kirby's hammer slammed into the blue crystal. The electricity caused no damage to the wood…and the crystal shattered.

Kirby looked at Onox, just as the mace slammed into his back. Kirby flew forwards toward Onox…who stopped him. With his fist. Kirby crumpled like a piece of paper. However Meta dashed forward and sliced in Onox's direction. Onox jerked back…but it wasn't him Meta was aiming for…

Bario rolled out of the way of Veran's physical attack…but he missed the fact that it was a feint, and got blasted by one of her energy attacks. He was sent into Link and both fell hard to the ground. Veran flew up, dodging Samus's missiles, and summoned a large ball of energy. She threw it above her and it split into several small magic balls that careened toward to the ground.  
Bario and Link scrambled to their feet, but had to duck and cover as magic energy slammed into the ground around them. Mario dodged a few and shot a few fireballs at Veran. She easily dodged them…but didn't dodge the two missiles that slammed solidly into her side.

She squealed and staggered-flew in the general direction of Onox, hoping that he would defend her from the viciousness of the Smashers, and help stop the ass-kicking she was receiving.

Meta's mysteriously powerful sword cut through the chain on Onox's mace. The ball fell to the ground with a loud THUD. Onox stared at Meta in shock before punching him hard into the ground. He then threw his mace's handle at Kirby, which smacked him pretty hard. Onox let out a roar of fury and stomped the ground, causing some chunks of the ceiling to fall down.

Falco rolled to avoid lumps of the ceiling and shot more laser shots at him. They didn't really hurt him…just angered the crap out of him. He fired tornadoes at Falco, who barely dodged. Falco decided that if he was going to stop this walking tank…he was going to have use the big guns.

He dashed again as Onox stomped a little bit harder, causing larger chunks to fall, and Falco became wreathed in fire as he used one of his most powerful attacks. Fire Falco. He shivered as the flames covered him thanks to some advanced technology, and then shot off for Onox. Onox was to busy being angry to notice Falco…until he slammed into his chest.

Onox teetered…hanging on to his footing by sheer will. Falco's attack faded and he stepped back, anticipating Onox's soon collapse. However Onox's massive gloved hand shot out and gripped Falco's shoulder. Falco whimpered in pain as the incredibly heavy Onox forced him to the ground as stood back up. Onox growled at Falco and shifted his grip to his throat. He squeezed a bit and then dismissively tossed him aside.

Onox then let out a loud roar, as he was furious that he was being fought against…and hurt. He jumped in the air, surprisingly high, and slammed down, bringing huge pieces of the ceiling down. He did it again and again…and finally a humongous pile came crashing down towards him…just as Veran flew overhead. They each let out one short scream before being buried by the rubble.  
Amazingly, there was still ceiling above the Smashers and the pile of debris. The floors and ceilings must be incredibly thick. The Smashers slowly staggered to the front of the wreckage, although Raichu and Kirby were to beat up to really move but Diddy had recovered. They stared at the pile, before Falco asked the most pertinent question.

"Are they dead?"  
Bario soon answered.

"Based on the fact that we're not healed…I'd have to say no."

Suddenly the pile of rubble flashed, and the Smashers covered their eyes. The large chunks of rock then crumbled into dust…and revealed Veran and Onox. Veran had become either a large turtle or some kind of beetle…it was hard to tell. All that was important was that it was big and had a huge shell. To add to its weirdness it still had Veran's face…admittedly altered and deformed, but still discernible.

However Veran paled in comparison to what Onox had become. He was some kind of massive dragon, with two huge horns, a large jewel in the center of his head and a snakelike tail. He had two wings that were too small to lift his massive body…but lift they did. He had large clawed hands that were attached to his long arms, and a boar-like mouth, with tusk-like teeth.

Verna made a loud rumbling noise before charging at the Smashers. Most dodged, but Samus wasn't fast enough and got clipped by the side of Veran's large shell. Samus rolled upon hitting the ground, and came up firing. Her missiles were ineffective though, and bounced off Veran's hard shell. Samus groaned, and she, Falco and Mario chased after the witch.

Link, Diddy, Bario and Meta stayed and faced off against Onox's new form…the Dark Dragon. He roared and swiped at Bario, who rolled and slashed at Onox's hand. The strike just bounced off of his thick scaled appendage, and Bario almost lost his grip on the sword.  
Meta flew at Onox, dodging another hand swipe and sliced him in the chest. Again however, the attack was ineffective and Onox brought his hand in rapidly, squishing Meta against him, severely injuring the masked knight, but not enough to stop him. Meta fell to the ground and slashed at Onox's snake-like tail…but again, no effect, except of course for Onox punching him solidly in the head.

"Where is this guy's weak point?!" Diddy yelled while dodging some blue flames that were being shot from Onox's mouth.

"I don't…wait!" Bario said, spying the orange jewel on his head, "There! Hit the jewel!"

Veran had led the other three to the other side of the arena, considerably far from the others. She was proving remarkably difficult to damage, as the whole way over there they tried all manner of projectiles, but her hard shell prevented her from being damaged. She did make the mistake of looking back once, and then she got a fireball in the face.

Upon reaching a certain point Veran leapt high into the air. It was surprising that she could jump at all considering her current body, but the Smashers had little time to contemplate the logistics because she was coming down fast…on them. Mario, Falco and Samus ran out of the flight path, but soon fell to the ground as the massive shockwave hit them from her impressive girth.

She seemed to have cracked part of the floor and a greenish swamp-like substance was surrounding her…and there was a lot of her to surround. Part of the goo touched Falco and he hissed and jumped back…it was poisonous!  
"Not good, not good!" he said.

Veran stuck her head out of her shell (Apparently she was a turtle) to see her handiwork, when Samus hit her with three missiles, and Mario smacked her with five fireballs, as they were waiting for her to do that. Veran screamed…and began to change form again…

Hitting the jewel was easier said than done. In Onox's new form he didn't move a lot, but not only was he very large, but his wings kept him even higher off the ground. It didn't help that the jewel was at the top of his head, so anything other than projectile attacks would fall short. How convenient for Onox that Meta had just fallen into unconsciousness…

Diddy fired some peanuts at Onox's orange jewel. They connected, and Onox winced, but they seemed too weak to be actually effective. Onox breathed some red fireballs at Diddy, who although he dodged, his fur got singed. Onox then swiped again at Bario, but didn't notice Link's arrow until it smacked into his jewel.

He yelled and spun towards Link, right when he threw a boomerang at him. The boomerang hit right where the arrow had, and it created a sizable crack. Onox let out a piercing squeal and blinked his large eyes rapidly, trying to block out the pain…but then Link threw a bomb at the jewel. It exploded, causing sizable damage and enlarging the crack even more.

Veran's new form was rapidly revealed…she had become a large wasp-like creature, complete with functional transparent wings. She flew at Falco, who dashed away from the attack and fired several laser shots at her. She didn't even seem to notice, and shot a stinger at Samus.

Samus dodged and fired missiles at Veran. She was too big to avoid them, and although she looked like it hurt, she just dived for Samus and slammed her hard. Samus was flung bodily to the ground, and had to side-roll to avoid Veran's stinger. Veran would have kept at it but Mario had jumped onto her back and was smacking her with his hammer. She flew into the air and tried to get him off, but he hung on.  
Samus started charging up her Charge Shot, while Falco looked for an opening. Mario kept whaling on her…until seven clouds of smoke appeared around her, and they dispersed to reveal…wasps. Yes, Veran had summoned seven smaller wasps that quickly began stinging Mario. He swiped at them, and in the process fell off of the witch. He fell hard, but squished three beneath him. The other four he swatted easily enough.

Veran flew above the three, trying to figure out what to do, when Samus fired a fully charged Charge Shot at her. The attack slammed into her hard, and she crashed into the ground, only a few feet in front of Falco. He backed up quickly, when she began to glow…again.

Onox teetered, and it looked like he was about to fall when suddenly his clawed fist shot out and socked Link in the face. The blond elfin teen flew back twenty feet before sinking into a lifeless state.  
Bario groaned and realized it was down to just him and Diddy against Onox, jeez this guy was brutal! Or so he thought…as a large ball of lightning hit Onox in the head. Onox shook and quivered as a visibly tired Raichu joined up with Diddy and Bario.

"Hey guys…did I miss anything?"

Bario flashed an appreciative smile at Raichu before suddenly sparking on a plan. He spoke quickly as Onox was starting to recover and then he ran off. Diddy squared his shoulders and pulled out one of his remaining orange grenades.  
"I don't have a lot left…," he said morosely, before tossing the one he had at Onox.

Veran's final transformation was that of a large spider, again with her face. She shot a strand of webbing at Falco, and it hit him like a punch. He flew back, as Mario shot a fireball at Veran. Her new form didn't seem to like fire, and she rammed into Mario at a high velocity, extinguishing the flame with her speed.

Mario fell back as Samus opened up, firing missile after missile. Veran smacked her with one of her brittle legs, and Samus rolled across the ground, as Falco started firing. Veran, realizing that the fight was not going to go her way unless she did something spun around and grabbed Falco, bringing him close to her fangs.  
Just before she bit into him he activated his Reflector, zapping her with a small shock, in her legs and fangs. She squealed in surprise more than pain and threw him. He flipped through the air and managed to land on his feet, a feat he did not intend, pure luck it was. Veran turned her attention towards Samus, when Mario dashed under her and kicked out one of her brittle and weak legs.

Veran stumbled and tried to retaliate, but she couldn't reach beneath her as Mario punched and hammered two more legs. Dangerously unsteady she jabbed at him with one leg while she tried to move away. Suddenly Falco slammed into her, with his fire Falco ability, just when Mario shot three fireballs at her soft belly. Mario ran out as Veran collapsed, flaming. She made one last reach for Falco when Samus hit her with two missiles.

The orange grenade exploded on Onox's chest. The blow didn't really hurt him, but it caused him to focus on Diddy. Onox tried to swipe at Diddy, but the chimp skillfully avoided the attack. Raichu then shocked the hand. Onox growled and tried to smash the mouse with his other hand when he felt a strange tickling on his scaled back. He started to reach behind him when Diddy started pelting his face with peanuts.  
Onox roared and shot a burst of red flame at the monkey. Diddy cart-wheeled out of the way and Raichu shocked him again. Onox back-handed Raichu, who although he tried to dodge, he was really worn out and was hit a glancing blow. Onox turned all his attention onto Raichu, a fact Diddy tried to change by hitting him with peanuts.  
Onox ignored the annoying attacks and raised his massive fist to smash Raichu.

"NO!" Diddy shouted as he ran towards Raichu, but it was obvious he wouldn't make it in time.

However, he didn't have to as Bario came up from the back side of Onox's head, where he was climbing and plunged both swords into Onox's jewel. Onox froze and then with a cry of rage shook. Bario fell off, and it seemed like it was over…

Onox and Veran exploded at the same time. The pink dust washed over everyone, awakening the many that were knocked unconscious. The bars over the door were unsealed and the Smashers congratulated themselves on taking out their newest foes. Link looked pensive though, and Falco soon raised a question he was trying to find an answer to.

"Hey, this is Hyrule Castle right?"  
Bario told him that yes; this was Hyrule Castle, at least when Ganondorf didn't conquer it.

"Okay…then where's Zelda? She lives her right?"

"Zelda?" Bario clarified.

"Yeah! The chick that could turn into a guy! Or…was she a guy that could turn into a girl? Huh. What would that be like? Being able to change gender…confusing probably, but hey, at least you'd get to see naked girls all the time, but it would be yourself…unless you liked guys…Ew! Girls turning into guys! Bad image!"

"Shut up," Samus said.

"Shutting up."

"I don't know where she is…perhaps Ganondorf has her locked away somewhere," Bario said.

"Hope she's okay," Diddy said.  
"Mutual," the normally quiet Link said, before sheathing his sword and walking through the door.  
The others didn't have time to ponder Link's speaking, and they soon followed the swordsman, not knowing what horrors and insanity awaited them, behind door number…well, whichever one they're on…thirteen? Fourteen? Lost count…


	16. The Mask Attacks

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Sixteen: The Mask Attacks**

Following their successful, but brutal battle against Onox and Veran, the Smashers quickly ran up the stairs and through the door, into a room unlike the others previous…

The room was the same general size and color and style of the previous room, large, drab, gray and dungeony. What made it different was two fold. First, instead of being a large rectangular room, it was actually in the shape of a pentagon, with the door they came in facing the point, and on the left side of that point was the door to the next area…locked of course.

The second difference was the masks. There were five, although only four were immediately visible to the Smashers. Each one was midway up each of the walls. They were strange masks, definitely not something most people would see in a mask shop, or carried by say…a happy mask salesman…or are they? No. No they're not. Maybe…

One of the masks had war paint on and seemed to be of the kind warriors would wear into battle. A second looked vaguely like a metallic goats head, but larger and more intimidating. The third was shaped sort of like a fish, a fish with a very pointed snout and massive teeth. The fourth and final visible mask was that of a three-eyed centipede.  
Upon seeing the masks Link and Bario stiffened. Raichu looked curiously at them.

"Bario? What's up? They're just masks, admittedly creepy masks, but masks nonetheless." Raichu said.

"What?! Oh, yeah, you're not from this world. Those are the Remains Masks, the leftovers from four very powerful creatures that Link killed…in a separate dimension?"

Bario looked at Link, wondering if he'd help him explain the masks. But despite his "outburst" in the last room, Link seemed content to examine his sword.

"Right…separate dimensions," Falco said, "but so what? They're just masks, they can't hurt us-"

As if an ironic answer to his uninformed statement the four masks floated down from their perches on the wall…and started shooting white balls at the Smashers.

"Why did you say that?! You always say things like that!" Diddy yelled as he avoided a blast.

"I'm sorry!" Falco said as he dodged an attack and then snap-kicked the insect mask, which used to be a creature known as Twinmold. The mask shuddered and exploded after the single attack.

"Well that's good to know!" Bario said as he sliced and killed the fish mask, formerly known as Gyorg. "They're weak! One good attack should finish them!"

Samus attempted to avoid the energy blast that the goat mask/Goht shot at her, but the warrior/Odolwa mask hit her by surprise. The attack was weak, but the shock of it knocked her down. The mask moved over her and looked like it was going to attack again when Mario jumped over her head and slammed the Odolwa mask with his hammer, sending it flying into the Goht mask and taking both of them out.  
Mario then extended a hand to Samus and helped lift her up. She was about to say thanks, but something in his eyes, the way he seemed like he wasn't really paying attention, caused her not to say anything.  
The Smashers grouped near the middle of the room, and several of them were wondering why the door was not opening.  
"Bario…what was the big deal with those wimpy masks? They were NOT worth your reaction when we came here." Raichu said.

"Them?" Bario scoffed, "No…they're not why I was startled and worried."

"Then what was?" Diddy asked, sensing bad news.

"That." Bario said, pointing to the wall above the door they entered, the only wall they couldn't see upon their first look in the room. A loud shrill laugh echoed through the room as the Smashers spun around…to see a fifth mask.

It was immediately apparent that this mask was different from the others as it detached itself from the wall and floated downwards. First it was heart-shaped and surrounded by spikes. Second it had large disturbing eyes and third it had a vibrant and technicolor color scheme with colors ranging from purple to yellow. The final difference was its size. It was initially the size of a normal face covering mask, but as it floated down it grew until it was easily as tall as an adult male human, and a good deal thicker.

"Bario…what it is that…?" Falco said as he and the other Smashers backed away slowly.

"Majora's Mask." Link replied as the mask lowered itself until it was flat on the floor with its "face" up. Several long dark red strands extended from the back of the mask.

Before the rest of the Smashers could comment on Link actually talking, the mask shot off like a buzz saw, the spikes spinning and the longer strands whirling, straight at the group of Smashers.

They scattered, but Kirby got grazed by a strand and started bleeding. He did however manage to escape from any more damage. The mask stopped spinning for a second…before slicing again, this time at Link.

Link raised his shield up, and although he was sent flying, the mask bounced back and up off the floor. Bario leapt forward, and as the mask tried to get on the floor again, he stabbed it in its apparently vulnerable underside.  
The mask screeched and flew away from Bario. It raised itself high into the air, facing the Smashers as its strands waved around it.

"Bario, I'm not sure what this thing is…but I don't like it!" Falco said as he shot several pistol shots at the mask, only to have them bounce off the hard surface…and fly back at him.

He dodged, and Diddy shot a few peanuts, only to have them break harmlessly on the mask. Majora's Mask started extending its strands into a sun-like shape…

"Guys! Get ready to move! That thing is going to start blasting!" Bario yelled. The Smashers nodded and tensed…although Link shot Bario a look of intense and suspicious puzzlement.  
Samus fired a few missiles, but not surprisingly they too, appeared to cause no damage to the seemingly invulnerable mask. The mask then fired an immensely powerful blast from its front. The red and orange beam boiled the floor as the mask tracked a path toward Meta and Samus. They rolled to avoid the beam, but Meta got skimmed and part of his mask burned, sizzling his face. He let out a grunt, but otherwise didn't react.

The beam considered a bit more, but faded quickly. Despite the incredible power of the attack it dispersed rapidly. However while the mask tried to charge the attack up again it was struck by three arrows in the back. Clearly Link had battled this creature before, and so he knew what to expect. The mask screeched and spun around, apparently deciding to forgo charging its beam and just saw through Link…at least until Samus took advantage of its dropped guard and fired two missiles at its back…at the same time Mario fired five fireballs.

All of the attacks connected, and the mask screeched again, louder, and floated to the ground, although positioned now so no attack could be made. It stopped several feet above the floor…and began to quiver.

"Bario…is it dead?" Diddy asked.

Link shook his head, but Bario answered.

"No…if I'm correct, get ready for a thoroughly strange experience."  
"Strange?" Falco asked, but before he was answered, the mask did something that demanded his full undivided attention.

It grew two large long legs. They were thin, but muscled, and looked purplish and bruised. They were accompanied by two similarly long arms and a thick eye on a stalk. The new creature let out a high-pitched childish sound…and then started moon-walking across the floor.

"Majora's Incarnation." Bario said, before Link threw his boomerang.

The dancing creature was hit a glancing blow, but that didn't seem to matter as it stopped dancing and dashed forward at a speed so high, a blurry after-image was left in its wake. It slammed into Link, and despite the seeming frailty of the creature it kept moving long after Link slammed into one of the walls.

"Whoa! What was that-" Falco managed to get out before he too, was slammed.

Raichu shot off several electric balls at the rapidly moving creature but Majora's Incarnation didn't so much dodge them, as move so fast it was impossible to hit. It stopped in front of Raichu and moved its arms speedily, firing off at least a dozen white energy balls, similar to the ones the Remains Masks fired. Each one connected, and Raichu was very much down…for the count.

However while Majora's Incarnation was busy attacking Raichu, Meta Knight flew forward and slashed the front of the creature, despite his burned face, and judging from the loud screech, the mask was no longer impervious…just really fast.  
The Incarnation fell to the ground and Meta slashed it a few times. The chance to attack was brief, and only Mario and Link were able to get in some weak attacks before it rose up and started doing the can-can around the room.

"Is this thing insane?!" Falco yelled as he clambered to his feet.

"Yes," Bario said as he avoided running into the Incarnation, "Yes it is."

Kirby tried to attack it, but despite its crazy dancing, it was still incredibly fast. It wasn't until it started doing some kind of Russian dance that it was in the same spot long enough for Samus to smack it with a missile. It fell to the ground and the Smashers quickly pummeled the crap out of it. It squealed and threw them away and then dashed to the far side of the room from them…and began to change…again.

Its legs thickened and became even more thickly muscled. It grew a demonic head with small eyes and short horns, although the main mask maintained its status as center of the body, and the new head did look rather small. However the most obvious change was the arms growing…and growing…and growing. They seemed to stop somewhere around the twenty foot length, but it was hard to tell as he kept moving his whip-like arms around.

"What the hell is that?!" Falco asked.

Link opened his mouth to speak, but Bario beat him to the punch.

"Majora's Wrath! Watch out for its…arms!"  
Wrath flung its arms out like the whips they appeared to be. They were longer than they initially appeared as they were able to stretch out considerably, allowing the creature to smack Samus, and Diddy to the ground with large stinging welts, and some severe bruises.

It squealed again and prepared to have a second wave of attacks when Mario hit it in the face with a fireball. Wrath screamed, more in anger than anything else, and using its massive legs, leaped to the far side of the room.  
"This thing is fast…we'll need to get close, so his arms get accurately hit us!" Bario said, realizing that now called for strategy, "Samus, you and Diddy are injured but mobile," he said, seeing them get up, "So cover for us, and guard Raichu! The rest of us…let's go kill an evil mask!"

The Smashers nodded, seemingly not having a problem obeying Bario, as he was quite charismatic, and his plan seemed sound. Samus and Diddy aimed with their respective weapons while the other Smashers…CHARGED!

Majora's Wrath flung out its arms, knocking back Falco and Meta, but Bario and Link managed to get close enough to stab it several times and Mario and Kirby smacked it hard with their hammers. Wrath prepared to jump away, but as soon as it moved away from the cover of the attacking Smashers Samus and Diddy pelted it with peanuts and missiles. And because they were to far away to effectively retaliate, Wrath had to use plan B.

It yanked one of its whip arms back and Falco tried to jump out of the way, but Wrath grabbed him with his other arm, and tightened. Falco let out a brief yell of pain, before the air was forced from his body. He tried to activate his Reflector, his Fire Falco, anything, but he was unable to move enough.  
"Falco!" Bario yelled as he tried to slash the arm, but Wrath smacked him away, ignoring the other attacks and threw Falco at Samus and Diddy. They tried to move away, they really did, but the attack was too sudden, too swift, and they were too injured to avoid it. All three fell to the ground hard near the wounded Raichu, and with no one covering it, Majora's Wrath leapt away from the five remaining attackers.  
They tried to follow it, avoiding its whipping arms, but Kirby got smacked, and fell behind. Meta however, managed to fly over Wrath and proceeded to slash at his head. Wrath screamed and leaped away again, and flung its arms out in a crazy pattern, as Link, Mario and Bario all tried to avoid them long enough to hurt it. However Wrath squealed again and snapped its whips on the ground…creating large spiked spinning tops.

"Well, that's not good." Bario said as rolled to avoid the new weapons.  
Wrath's tops seemed to home in on the Smashers, so they had to watch out for not only his whip arms, but the tops as well. Mario leaped and rolled, and generally made a very impressive acrobatic showing…until Wrath smacked him down by Link. Meta was flying over, slashing at the tops, and they were focusing on him and Bario.

Link fired off three arrows, but Wrath didn't seem to notice or care, and Mario shot off two fireballs, but they were too slow and Wrath managed to bat them away. They seemed to be at a standstill…until Mario and Link got an idea at the same time.

Link held out an arrow, and Mario looked at him and nodded. Mario set the arrow aflame, creating a fire arrow, and Link fired it at Wrath. The arrow penetrated one of its whip arms and THAT Majora's Wrath felt. Link and Mario created three more which they shot at Wrath and while it was distracted, Bario took this opportunity to dash forward, avoiding its flailing but un-aimed arms and skidding past a spiked top to jump forward and stab…an arm that sent him flying back. Wrath seemed almost to giggle and prepared to attack, now that those flaming arrows had stopped…wait, then where was…?!

Wrath didn't have a chance to move as Link, who had run up while Wrath was focused on Bario leapt forward and stabbed him in the head. Link's Master Sword entered through one side of Majora's Wrath's head, and exited through the other side. Wrath let out one high-pitched yell…before exploding into dust, with the tops accompanying him.  
The healing dust spread throughout the room, restoring all the injured back to their normal selves and even fixing Meta's charred mask. Raichu gained consciousness just as the door opened.

"Uh…I'm going to take a wild guess and say…we won?"  
"Yes, we did, but it was not easy," Samus said.

Realizing that there really wasn't anything else to say they turned to leave…as Link glared daggers at Bario. Bario turned around, only to see Link putting his bow on his back, and checking his apparently limitless supply of arrows. Bario shrugged, and together they left.


	17. Vaati’s Vengeance

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Seventeen: Vaati's Vengeance**

Following the defeat of Majora's Mask, the nine Smashers ran through the door and up the spiraling staircase that was a staple of Ganondorf's Tower. On the way up Falco tried to ask some questions pertaining to their journey.

"So…what'll we do after we kill Ganondorf?"  
Bario stumbled on a step, but was able to maintain his balance and answer the question.

"I would assume we'd go back to the Mushroom Kingdom, and see if we can find Master Hand, and Giga Bowser from there. Link, where's the portal to leave here?"  
Link looked at Bario as they reached the top of the stairs.

"Gone," he said.

"Gone?! What do you mean GONE?!" Falco asked, or rather, screamed.  
Before anyone could answer his question Mario opened the door, and they discovered their next challenge, in a room nearly identical to all the others. Much to their disappointment, the being who greeted them was not Ganondorf. It was however, quite nearly as evil.

The figure was not overly big or menacing, about the size and build of an older child, with a mostly dark purple cloak, comparable to the abnormal color of Bario's hair. This being, known as the Wind Mage Vaati, had on a purple cap, similar to Link's with a red jewel on it. He had long light purplish gray hair…and was surrounded by ten large dark knight-like creatures.

Each one was very large, at least seven feet tall, and was covered entirely in thick, dark armor. Each one held a massive sword, about six feet long and very thick and wide. Each one also had a second sword in a scabbard, but since they had big shields in their other hands, they could only wield the one large sword.

"Crap." Bario said.

"Ha ha ha! I am Vaati, the Wind Mage…and you have overstayed your welcome."  
The Smashers lined up, most of them wary, but more focused on the big scary knights, also known as Darknuts, then the small Wind Mage.

"I see you've noticed my Darknuts," Vaati said, in a high-pitched voice.

"Well, duh, they're not hard to miss, Vaati," Bario said in a sarcastic tone.

Vaati looked at Bario in confusion.  
"Do I know you?"

Bario looked startled, not as if he was surprised of that fact, merely as if he had forgotten.

"No, I don't believe you do. I've studied you though!"  
Vaati smiled at that.

"Well, that's sweet. But enough talk about my greatness. You shall not travel any farther. Ganondorf lies above me, but my Darknuts shall easily kill you. Ten Darknuts for ten Smashers. Sounds fair."

"But there are only nine of us!" Diddy said.

Vaati looked taken aback, and counted quickly.

"What? Where is that annoying green dinosaur Ganondorf told me about?"  
Mario twitched in anger, but Bario was the one who replied.

"He died. You haven't been keeping watch on us?"  
Vaati shrugged indifferently.

"Not really. Whenever Ganondorf started telling me stuff, I just tuned him out. That guy can get really boring, what with his obsession with killing Link and getting the Triforce."

Bario looked at him confusion.

"But wait, don't you want to kill Link, and aren't you obsessed with getting a mystical Picori power source?" In response to the interested glances Bario rapidly answered, "I read about it somewhere."

"Possibly, but still, I mean come on! I'm way more interesting. Besides, if you guys are strong enough to get here, than you should have no problem fighting an extra Darknut. Attack!"

The Darknuts moved before the Smashers could even react to Vaati's rapid change of focus. They raised their swords over their heads and held their shields in front of them, and charged!

"Crap!" Falco yelled, before pulling out his pistol and firing. The shots were mostly blocked by their thick shields, and what actually did manage to get through seemed to cause no damage because of the thick armor.  
Samus fired as well, and her missiles didn't even slow them down. The Darknuts were rather slow to begin with, but they picked up momentum and were moving quite fast by the time they covered half the distance. Mario started firing fireballs, Raichu shot electric balls, Diddy fired peanuts, Kirby was using shockwaves and Link was firing arrows like crazy, occasionally throwing his boomerang or a bomb.  
The Darknuts however seemed mostly unaffected by the sheer wave of power being thrown at them, and they soon reached the Smashers with only minimal superficial damage. They reared back…and swung! One sword per Smasher, with the final Darknut hanging back.

The preparation for the swing was slow enough for the Smashers to easily get out of the way, but the actual attack was very fast, and Falco got nicked before rolling behind his attacker and kicking it squarely in the back. The blow loosened some of the armor, but almost knocked Falco over as the Darknut slowly turned around…

Mario ducked under the sword swing and kicked out at the Darknuts legs. The creature wobbled and fell to its knees, and Mario slammed it in the chest with his hammer. The Darknut tried to stab him, but he was to close for the massive sword to be effective. Mario reared back to attack again…when the Darknut slammed him with his shield, sending him flying back…

Kirby heroically sucked up massive quantities of air and used it to float over the Darknut that was trying to recover from missing him with its sword. He turned into a large rock and slammed on the creatures head. It made a loud cracking noise, and Kirby slid off and fell on the floor. He changed back and saw that despite the crack in the armor he just created, the Darknut was swinging its sword again…

Link raised his shield and blocked the attack of the Darknut in front of him. The size and weight of the sword, coupled with the massive strength of the Darknut almost made him fall over, but he held firm. Link used his other arm to try and slice at the creature's chest, but it intercepted his sword with its shield. Again the power almost knocked the sword from his grip, but he held strong. Both Link and the Darknut seemed to be at an impasse…but Link was being slowly but surely beat down as the creature was considerably more powerful than him…

Diddy cart wheeled away from the Darknuts sword, and it slammed hard into the ground, the small quake almost knocking Diddy over. He managed to keep up however and flipped back into a standing position and opened fire with his peanut guns. The Darknut however seemed not to even notice as it slowly turned and raised its sword. Diddy gulped and prepared to move…

Raichu decided to be different, and rather than avoiding the sword swing, he ran under it and leapt up on the Darknuts chest. He shocked it repeatedly, the metal armor amplifying the attack. The Darknut started groaning and grunting, as it got its shield in place and…BAM! It smashed Raichu in the back. He lost his grip and fell to the ground in a daze…as the Darknut readied its sword…

Bario intercepted the blade aimed at his face by crossing his swords over his head and catching it between them. He then used all his strength to push up and using that momentum he brought his legs up in a double kick that slammed into the creature's chest. Enraged the Darknut brought its oversized sword down like a massive axe…which Bario again blocked. Confused at the apparent durability of the swords, the Darknut faltered…which allowed Bario to smash it with the flat of one of his blades. The Darknut stumbled…but recovered in time to swing again…

Samus rolled into her Morph ball form and rolled away from the attack, laying bombs at the feet of the Darknut. They exploded, causing minor damage, but otherwise not really affecting it. She returned to her normal shape, and charged up her Power shot, hoping that she would get a chance to use it…

Meta parried the attack of the Darknut, flying too close for it to get any decent power shots at him. It tried to smack him with its shield but Meta Knight just flew around it and slashed repeatedly at the Darknut, causing sparks to fly. The armor was weakened, but still there, and the Darknut was still trying to hit him. Sooner or later he would make a mistake…

Falco backed up rapidly from his Darknut, and called out to the others.

"Yeah, I don't know about you guys, but I can't kill this thing!"

Bario ducked under the sword aimed at his head, and answered Falco.

"Okay! What do you say guys? Teamwork time?"  
There was a loud flurry of yes's, Okays, okeydokeys, and a head nod from Link as he rolled away from the Darknut that was trying to overpower him. Bario nodded, and together they backed off from the Darknuts, which were too slow to keep up with them.

"Alright guys! Focus on Kirby's Darknut, the one with the big crack in its helmet!" Bario told them.

It didn't take long for them to attack, and with the Darknuts spread out throughout the room, they were able to single this one out. Bario, Meta, Link and Mario all charged forward, ducking, rolling, flying, or jumping over and around its attack. It managed to block Link with its shield, but the other three managed to hit it hard, loosening its armor, and expanding the crack.

The other eight Darknuts, and the tenth one, the one that held back, and was completely unharmed started walking towards them, but the five other Smashers held them back with ranged attacks, or at least distracted them, as many of the ranged attacks, such as Diddy's peanuts or Falco's lasers didn't serve to do much more than irritate.

Vaati watched the proceedings with a cool glare. He smiled at first, when each one was battling there own Darknut, but he started to frown as they tried to take out one at a time. But he wasn't worried…there were a lot of tricks left up his sleeve.

The Darknut that Mario and the rest were attacking was trying to attack and defend itself, but up against four skilled fighters, with each one moving around and staying to close for it effectively attack, it was being worn down. It'd block a hammer from Mario with its shield, and a sword or two from Bario, but at least two other attacks would hit it. It would try to smash Meta with its shield, or slice at Link with its sword, but while it did that, the other two would attack. Soon, the armor just fell off, as it was designed to take a beating, but not one that bad.

Vaati smiled when he saw the armor fall off. Now things will get interesting…

Beneath the armor was…more armor. However, this was chain mail armor, as in it had numerous silvery links, that rattled around. It wasn't as protective as the other, thick battle armor, but it was considerably lighter, and allowed for a broader range of movement. The helmet had also collapsed, as it appeared that the entire outer armor was designed to fall apart after a certain amount of damage was dealt. Beneath that helmet was another, rounder, more human head shaped helmet, than the other one, which was long and had large horns.

The armor-less Darknut suddenly leapt back, considerably faster now. It threw its sword and shield at its attackers. Mario dodged the sword, but the shield slammed into Bario. It then removed its second sword. A thinner, longsword, that was still far too large for any human to wield, but in the Darknuts hands, it looked extremely dangerous.

"Ugh," Bario said upon getting up and rubbing his side, where he envisioned a large bruise was forming, "this is really not good."

Meanwhile the other five Smashers were starting to get nervous as six Darknuts came for them while the other three branched off and headed for Link and pals. Despite the barrage they were throwing, they couldn't get either group to back off. Samus charged a Power Beam shot.

The armor-less Darknut leapt forward and sliced at Meta, who barely managed to catch the sword on his. The Darknut struck again, from a different angle, blindingly fast, and Meta was just a shade to slow now. The sword caught him on his metal mask and sent him flying.

Bario dashed forward and tried to strike at the Darknut, blocking the creature's attack with his sword. However the Darknut had a longer range and Bario couldn't quite reach the creature with his other sword. So before it could react he threw it like a large dagger.

Vaati watched the fight, and decided that things had gone on long enough. He charged up a ball of blue electrical energy and threw it at Link. It skimmed past Link and slammed into the ground, scorching it. Link snapped his head back and looked at Vaati, who merely grinned and fired another, which Link deflected with his shield.

Samus fired her Charge Shot at the nearest Darknut, breaking its armor. Quickly it tossed its sword and shield at Diddy, who more on instinct than anything else, turned on his jetpack to dodge them. The Darknut then broke out into a full run yanking out its second sword on the way.

Bario's second sword flew the short distance and cut right through the chain-link armor. The Darknut grunted, and then shot its long leg straight up and out, catching Bario in the chest, and knocking him back. He let out a strangled yelp as he barely ducked under the swing of the Darknut, and tried to back off a bit.  
Mario jumped over, and while Bario was keeping the Darknut distracted, he rolled next to the Darknut unseen, and yanked the sword out. The Darknut grunted again and looked down at Mario as he tossed the sword back to Bario who caught it and used it to help deflect another attack. The Darknut let go of the sword with one hand and attempted to backhand Mario, when he back flipped and hit it in the face with a fireball.  
While the Darknut tried to bat out the fire, Bario ran up…and used both swords to cut in through opposite sides of the creature's neck, severing its head…and causing it to collapse in a puff of black smoke.

Bario than glanced at Link who was having difficulty batting aside Vaati's attacks. Vaati, seeing the Darknut dead, started shooting more attacks, at the other Smashers. Most missed, but one hit Falco, and he hit the ground twitching…as a Darknut reared over him. Unable to move temporarily, Samus had to shoot the unarmored beast in the face with a missile for it to back off.  
"Link! Distract Vaati! We'll never be able to take out these Darknuts with him taking potshots at us!"

Link nodded, and followed Bario's orders, despite the suspicion he had shown before. Link charged for Vaati. Although Link was a good deal away, he covered ground pretty fast, so Vaati charged up a weird dark brownish-black ball of energy. He shot it at Link right before Link got in sword range. Link dived to the ground and the attack flew over his head and hit a fully armored Darknut. The creature immediately turned to stone and froze in an instant. Mario ran past and after staring at it in puzzlement for a moment, he smacked it with his hammer, causing it to crumble.

Link leapt to his feet, and jumped to the side to avoid another attack from Vaati. He then swung his sword with all his might at Vaati's head. Vaati had no time to dodge, and he knew it. However instead of the faintly disturbing squelching noise of someone's head being removed, Link heard a metallic clang. Instead of seeing his sword pass through Vaati's neck, he saw Vaati block the attack with a grayish-purple longsword of his own. It glistened with an eerie malice, and the color seemed to shift and change. The sword left an impression of great fragileness, as it appeared to be made out of air. It was obviously not fragile however, considering it stopped Link's sword.

Link looked in Vaati in confusion as both lowered their three-foot long swords and backed away from each other.  
"Ah yes…you're not the Link that fought me before are you?" Vaati said smirking, thinking about Link's ancestors, who he had fought three times before.  
Link shook his head, but stayed wary.

"But I'm sure you read about me! There's an entire book all about me! I think it is in the Hyrule Castle Library. Isn't that just great? Aren't I fantastic?"

"No," Link said, startling Vaati, "And Ganondorf has an entire section."  
Vaati growled a bit, before biting off an answer.

"That's not important! You…you are different from your ancestors! They never spoke…but it matters not. I shall kill you, as I would have killed them."  
Link raised his sword and shield, but glanced pointedly at Vaati's sword.

"What? Oh this. I've always had it. After all, as I'm sure you know when I broke the Picori blade I had first won a sword fighting contest. I have just chosen not to use it before. But I think it would be fitting that instead of me being sealed inside a blade, or impaled by one, I shall use my own sword…to kill you!"  
And the battle began.

While the climactic showdown was commencing the other eight Smashers still had eight Darknuts to worry about. Darknuts that were becoming rapidly more dangerous as more of them lost their armor. As Mario, Bario, Meta, and Kirby dealt with the up close and personal attacks, the other ones did their best to distract, and damage the Darknuts. Soon only five Darknuts still had their armor, and Bario was locked in combat with one of the armor-less ones.

The five armored Darknuts pressed on, trying to get to the shooters, while the other two armor-less Darknuts tried to keep Kirby, Meta and Mario busy. Raichu saw that their attacks were not being effective, and so started to charge up. While the Darknuts plodded…Raichu began to glow with electricity…

Link deflected Vaati's simple stab with his shield, and then followed up with a stab to his heart. Vaati jumped back amazingly fast, and then used his sword to bat away Link's and punch him in the face. Link fell back from the blow, which was slightly charged with electricity, but managed to regain his balance and kick out at Vaati.

The kick hit him in his right leg, and he fell to his knees. Link raised his sword, but had to move it down to block the stab Vaati threw at him. Both the Master Sword and Vaati's Wind Blade were held tightly by their owners as they pushed against each other, trying to gain an advantage over the other. Suddenly Link shot out his shield arm, smacking Vaati in the head. Vaati fell back, and before he could recover Link stabbed, opening a cut on his left arm. Vaati let out a small yelp…before focusing again on Link…

Raichu suddenly flew off, using a technique called "Skull Bash". He slammed headfirst into a fully armored Darknut at a very high speed. The armor immediately collapsed, but Raichu fell to the ground dazed. The Darknut threw its sword and shield at Mario and Meta, who dodged, and yanked out its second sword, which it prepared to skewer the tiny electric mouse with.

Diddy saw his friend about to be made into a mouse-kabob, so after a dramatic "NOOOOOOO!" Diddy threw one of his few Orange Grenades at the Darknut. The Grenade hit it in the face and it instinctively caught it. While it did that, Diddy dashed forward and grabbed Raichu with his tail, flinging him out of harm's way and then cart wheeling to avoid the Darknuts swing, just as the Grenade exploded, destroying the unarmored being.

Vaati shot his sword forward, shooting a blast of wind at Link, who struggled to maintain his footing. Vaati then teleported behind Link and sliced, opening a wound up on his back. Link fell, and rolled over, now that the wind was gone and threw his boomerang at Vaati. Vaati deflected it with his sword and opened up with a punishing series of overhead blows that were meant to drain Link's strength.

Link blocked three of them, and then kicked out at Vaati's legs. Vaati leapt over the attack, but that allowed Link to stand up and slice again. The two then got into a series of parries and ripostes, strikes and counterstrikes, jumping and weaving, dodging spells and bombs, both fought ferociously while the others struggled against the Darknuts…

Bario managed to kill the Darknut he was fighting, but not without some cuts and scrapes, while the other Smashers had managed to knock the remaining six Darknuts out of their armor, which made them faster…but now at least they seemed to notice their attacks.

Kirby used his massive hammer to slam a Darknut in the chest. It flew backwards, but flipped over onto its feet and leapt forward again at Kirby. He tried to block it with his hammer, but he didn't have enough time…so it was a good thing Falco Fire Falco'd the creature, vaporizing the already weakened Darknut. The numbers were definitely in favor of our heroes.

Link groaned as Vaati let loose another wind attack, and the small chips of rocks and debris in the floor flew at him, getting embedded in his injuries, and just generally making a difficult fight more difficult. He would not give up though. Vaati teleported again, this time to his left and tried to hit him with an electric ball. Link deflected it back with his sword, and Vaati was hit by his own attack

Seeing an opening Link charged forward and slashed, but Vaati barely managed to deflect the strike. Vaati did not manage to block the shield as it slammed into his face again. Vaati fell hard. He clambered to his feet, panting heavily, matching Link's exhaustion…but then Vaati began to glow with energy and screamed.

"ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! I will not be defeated by you AGAIN!" Vaati shouted before driving his sword into the ground. Link took a step back as the ground cracked, shooting up blasts of air, while electricity circled around him and Vaati in a large round arena.

"You will DIE!" He shouted as a vortex of wind surrounded the two, whipping their clothes and hair around and sending bits of debris around in temporarily blinding gusts. The two combatants charged.

Samus finished off the last Darknut with a Charge Shot. With those annoyingly difficult creatures finally defeated the Smashers turned to see Link and Vaati locked in combat and barely visible through the thick wall of swirling air. Falco moved as if to assist, when Mario grabbed his arm, with enough force to almost dislocate.

"Ow! What was-," Falco started to say, before Bario interrupted.

"You can't pass through that…Vaati probably made that to keep us out, anyone who tried would be shredded!"  
Samus looked at Bario in puzzlement, before examining it with her own technology.

"He's right," she said, "But how did you know that?"  
Bario shrugged, with slightly emphasized casualness.

"Like I think I said before, I know some basic magic, and I can occasionally interpret some spells effects."  
"Neat," Diddy said.

"Yeah, neat, but what do we do now?" Raichu asked.

"Wait…and hope Link wins." Bario said.

Neither Link nor Vaati was winning. Swords were being clashed and both were being worn down, but both seemed to be relatively well-matched. About equal strength, although Vaati would occasionally use magic to augment his physical abilities, and Link's wide variety of weapons matched Vaati's powerful magic.  
Vaati fired several blue balls, which Link deflected. Link then pulled out three bombs which he threw around Vaati. Vaati teleported from the blast range, but just barely avoided a swing from Link. Link over-extended himself and Vaati clocked him in the jaw with his sword's hilt. Link jumped back, pulled out his bow and fired. Vaati blocked it…but didn't block Link's Hookshot.

It penetrated his stomach. Vaati looked down in surprise as Link drew him back…and stabbed him in the chest. Vaati looked at Link in shock…and unrepressed rage. Link withdrew his weapons and Vaati fell to the ground, on his knees. He coughed blood once…before croaking out a single sentence.

"It's not…over…Link."  
He then collapsed face-first on the ground. Immediately the wind vortex vanished. Link sheathed his sword and walked smiling back to the others, who all greeted him with whoops and whistles…except for Mario, who was staring at the door with a frown on his face, and Bario who was studying Vaati with a look of intense displeasure.  
Raichu was the first to notice Mario's attention.

"Mario? What's…oh," Raichu said as he noticed the door. The still LOCKED door.

"What's going on?! Are we trapped here?!" Falco demanded.

His question was soon answered…but not in a way he, or anyone else there liked.

Vaati slowly rose to his feet, laughing in that annoying high-pitched laugh of his, glowing with dark purple power.

"What?!" Bario yelled, confused anger evident in his voice.

"What's going on?!" Falco demanded.

No one answered his question as Vaati became wreathed in purple energy, laughing…and his laugh deepened. The energy was absorbed into his body, revealing the transformation that had taken place.  
"I'm going to take a wild guess, and say that this…is not good," Diddy said.

Vaati had become a tall, seven foot tall being, with a black and red cloak that appeared to be on a fire on the edges…fire that never spread. He had golden horns, attached by means of a red jewel on his head, and while his skin was still the same grayish-purple, his eyes were red and he looked like some fair demon…a demon with serious anger.

Topping the creepy eeriness of Vaati's new form was what appeared to be an EYE on his torso. A very LARGE eye. It looked like an eye on its side, with reddish pupils.

"I told you it wasn't over…," Vaati said, in his sinister new voice, which still carried enough of the undertones of the old one that it was obvious that he was the same person.

"Vaati! How is this possible?! Don't you need some kind of power source to transform?" Bario asked, at which both Vaati and Link jerked their heads rapidly to look at him.

"Yes…but how did you know that? I don't think that's in the book about me...?" Vaati inquired.  
Bario shook his head, and answered…or at least responded.

"I have my sources. Answer my question!"  
"I don't see why I should bother to answer yours, since you didn't answer mine…but oh well. Master Hand has granted me this power, and he, in junction with Ganondorf is the reason I and many of the other, supposedly dead foes that Link has killed before, have come back, and intended for one final chance…for one last time …FOR VENGEANCE!"

At that Vaati raised his arms and shot out a stream of fireballs. The Smashers were caught off guard, and Samus and Meta were both hit, not hard, but painfully. The others managed to avoid the attack.

Vaati used his eye to create four small floating eyes, with black and yellow backs and a black and red pupil from inside itself, and then spat them out. The four eyes rapidly spun around him. His large eye then closed.

Bario tried to get close to Vaati so he could stab the annoyingly resistant being, but the eyes were making it difficult. Bario ran forward, but one of the eyes slammed into his stomach, knocking the air out of him, and knocking him back. Vaati laughed and fired more fireballs at the other Smashers, focusing on Link.

Bario growled at the lack of interest Vaati was giving him. Deciding to show him what, Bario dived under the eyes and stabbed repeatedly at Vaati's torso. The swords seemed to be hitting some kind of impervious armor, and the only reaction Vaati gave him is to kick him with enough force to send him flying fifteen away.

While dodging the fireballs, the Smashers tried to fire ranged attacks at Vaati, but either they missed, or they just couldn't cause him any damage, it didn't seem to matter which.  
"How do we hurt this guy?!" Falco yelled, while firing rapidly and dodging more fireballs.

"I'm not sure!" Bario yelled back, trying to get off the ground.

Vaati cackled again, as they had no clue how to defeat him in his new powerful form.

"Now is when the winds shift, when I at last have my vengeance upon Link, Hyrule and the world! DIE!"  
He raised his hands and out from each of the eyeballs floating around him shot a red laser beam, considerably thicker than Falco's laser shot. The Smashers moved fast to avoid them, but as Vaati moved side to side, they had some serious difficulty, and Mario was smacked by one hard. Vaati was only able to keep it up for a few seconds however, and the beam soon died down.

"Dammit Vaati! Why can't you just die?!" Bario yelled.

"Because I must still complete my mission!"  
"What mission?" Bario asked.

"Killing all of you!" Vaati answered with another stream of fireballs.

"Why am I not surprised?" Bario said, as he ducked under one.

Link fired an arrow at Vaati. None of them had any reason to expect this arrow to cause any more damage than previous attacks…and technically to Vaati, it didn't. It did however penetrate one of the four eyes, causing it to explode into a cloud of smoke.  
"What?!" Vaati said.

"Of course! I don't know if it will do any good, but aim for the eyes!" Bario said.

Samus immediately responded by firing a missile at another one, destroying it as well.  
"Oh no you don't! I'm not going to make this easy for you!" Vaati said, before waving his arms…and shrouding the two remaining eyes in a dark blackish purple sphere of darkness.

Mario fired two fireballs, one at each eyeball…but the sphere seemed to absorb it, undamaged.

"What the…?" Diddy said, as he avoided another fireball from Vaati.  
Vaati raised his arms again, and shot the red laser beam from each of the two remaining eyeballs. The attack caught both Falco and Bario by surprise, and the two were sent flying back, severely injured.

"How do we destroy those eyes?" Samus asked of Bario, avoiding the lasers, until they faded and firing a missile that appeared to cause no damage.

"I don't know…," Bario said, as he looked at the spheres, at the way the color shifted, how the sphere shifted, like air, if it was solid and evil-looking…wait air…that's it!

"Kirby!" Bario yelled, "You need to suck up the spheres!"

"What?" Falco yelled back.

"That's right! They're made out of black solidified air…and Kirby can suck that up!"  
"That's crazy! It's impossible!" Samus said as she tapped her helmet, while avoiding some attacks, "That's…okay yeah you're right!"  
"It is so…wait what? Why did you suddenly change your mind?" Bario asked as he and Falco got up.

"I used my Scan Visor!"  
"Why didn't you just…never mind, we'll worry about that later, just GO Kirby!"

"Okay!" Kirby said, before running at Vaati.

"What?" Vaati said, as he shot numerous fireballs at Kirby.

Kirby managed to avoid them, long enough to get close to the eyes. He used his suction ability to suck up the dark air rapidly, but before he could do anything else he got blasted by a laser beam.  
"Now! He's vulnerable!" Bario said, as he and Link charged.  
Falco nodded and fired three shots, one managing to hit one of the rotating eyes.  
"No!" Vaati yelled, trying to hit either Link or Bario with a fireball, just as Mario used a fireball of his own to destroy Vaati's other eye.  
With all of the small eyes gone, Vaati's main eye on his torso opened up. He may be powerful, but all beings, regardless of form, must be vulnerable or have a weak point…and that was Vaati's.

"I will not die!" Vaati yelled as he teleported away from Link and Bario. He reappeared behind Samus, Diddy and Raichu, and hit all three with fireballs. His large eye created four new eyeballs.

"No!" Bario yelled, throwing one of his swords.

The four new eyes rotated around Vaati, and his large one began to close. The sword flew, spinning, like a pointy fan blade. It seemed to go faster the closer it got, crazy as that may seem.

Vaati didn't see the blade until it was too close for him to move, but even then his large eye closed. Time seemed to slow and everyone watched as the blade cut through the air, sliced right through one of the new eyes…and stabbed into the very center of Vaati's eye on his torso, an instant before it shut.

Vaati let out one loud cry…before yanking out the sword and throwing it back at Bario, who caught it a second before it pierced his face.

"Damn you…you force this upon yourselves. I'll have you know that I was going to make your deaths quick and relatively painless…but now, you shall have to define a whole new word for suffering to describe what I'm going to do to you!" Vaati yelled as he was enshrouded again by dark power.  
His central eye opened, breaking through the cloudy sphere, and it shifted from a vertical eye to a normal horizontal one…becoming completely red, except for the iris. The dark air was absorbed into the eye…revealing…an eye.  
Vaati had become a massive floating eyeball, and the two golden horns were attached to the top of his new eyeball shaped body, having fused into one base, but splitting off at the top. Golden eyelashes were around the actual eye, and the entire body had become a dark purplish black. The three eyes in front of him expanded and separated, until they formed into eight purplish larger eyes that surrounded him, two in the front, back, and sides. Each of the eyes were closed. A dark mist emanated from beneath him as he hovered a foot or two off the ground.

"I'm detecting an eye theme here," Falco said.

"How many forms does this thing have?!" Diddy asked.

"More than enough…to kill all of you!" Vaati shouted before shooting a trio of electric balls from his horn, thing.

The Smashers dodged them, except for Raichu, who was getting really sick of Vaati. Raichu used his tail to absorb one of the electric balls, and then fired a more powerful blast back. It impacted harmlessly on Vaati's side.

"Well…crud. I thought that would work." Raichu said.

Vaati floated slowly around, shooting electric balls three at a time from his horn thing-a-ma-bob. Bario dodged a couple and swung at Vaati, hitting two of the eyeballs on the left side. The one on the bottom of the side turned red and opened up; the second became blue and stayed close.

"What?" Bario said, before he was slammed by Vaati.

"Bario! What happened?" Falco yelled, while shooting back at Vaati, hitting one of the right side eyeballs. It turned blue, but other than that nothing happened.

"I think that's his weak spot…hit the eyes!" Bario yelled.

"No! I won't let you!" Vaati said, falling heavily to the ground, before floating up again.

Chunks of the ceiling fell down, which the Smashers barely avoided. Compounding the problem was Vaati shooting out dozens of small purple spiky objects that stuck to the floor and limited the areas in which they could move. Mario hopped over a few and smashed one of Vaati's upper eyes, and hit the other with his foot. Both turned blue. Vaati then blasted him with three electric balls in quick succession

Mario fell to the ground.

Link and Samus then fired arrows and missiles at Vaati, and were helped by Falco and Diddy firing as well. Meta flew at Vaati as the four eyes in the front turned red and vanished, leaving his central self unprotected. He didn't have a chance to do anything as Meta stabbed him in the eye, his two-foot long sword sinking all the way in.

Vaati let out a great bellow and shook himself so hard that Meta's sword, with Meta attached to it were sent flying into a wall. As Meta sank to the ground, he said only one thing, quite faintly.

"Spider kittens are allergic…to cheese."

Vaati let out another yell, and the four remaining eyes shrunk and moved to the front, protecting his eye. Two massive tri-clawed arms erupted from his sides, and he seemed to grow, just a little more.

"Oh come on," Bario said, "How much longer are you going to fight on?"  
"Until you all-" Vaati started.

"Die, I get it," Falco said, "But come on man, give it a rest! You won't win!"  
"Won't I? Let's find out!"  
At that Vaati raised his arms and shot orange energy balls from them, and added to that by shooting electric balls from his horns. The Smashers dodged and fired back but this form, like many of the previous, seemed invulnerable.

Bario used his swords to cut through one of the orange balls and then charged for Vaati, jumping over an electric ball. He sliced out, but before his swords reached Vaati, one of his arms came down and smacked him so hard and so fast that the arm actually swept him off his feet and dragged him a bit, before he was brutally thrown into a wall. He fell, struggling to recover.

Vaati laughed and dug one of his arms into the ground, creating a pool of shadow where it entered. Confused, the Smashers momentarily stopped…just as the arm reappeared, sticking straight up from a newly created second pool of shadow right in their midst. It shot orange balls rapidly, and that close Falco and Kirby were hit before anyone could react.  
As Falco fell he noticed that there was a small opening on the bottom of the arm.

"Hey! There's a small opening on the bottom of the arm!" Falco noticed.

Link looked, nodded, deflected an energy ball and threw a bomb in it. Vaati yelled and shot several energy balls at Link, most missing, and those that didn't he blocked with his shield, and the bomb exploded, destroying the arm and making Vaati cry out…however inside the arm and apparently surviving the explosion were several small pointy orange and black eyeball things.

They swarmed the Smashers, and as Mario, Link and Samus tried to destroy them, Vaati brought his second arm up through another shadow pool. Before it could do anything, Diddy threw one of his four remaining orange grenades in the hole. It exploded, and since his grenades were significantly more powerful than Link's endless bomb supply, it vaporized the little creatures as well.  
Vaati growled as Mario crushed the last of the creatures. Armless, but definitely not defenseless, Vaati had one final trick.

The Smashers regrouped, as Bario rejoined them, with Meta still lying on the ground. Vaati sprouted six small bat-like wings, three on each side of him, which lifted him up a bit higher off the ground, and allowed him to move faster.  
Vaati charged up his horn…and fired a stream of electric balls, similar to his previous stream of fire. Raichu absorbed two, and the others mostly dodged them, with the exception of Samus. Falco fired laser shots and Diddy added peanuts, with Mario's fireballs and Link's arrows, but the ones that Vaati didn't dodge, bounced harmlessly off the four eyeballs in front of him.

The four eyeballs opened and fired four blue energy blasts, one from each eyeball, at the Smashers. Most dodged, but Bario reflexively struck out with his swords, hitting two of the balls, and sent them flying back to their source. They hit two of the eyes, and caused them to vanish…but they quickly reappeared.

"Wait…I think I got it! Link, Mario, stand with me!" Bario said.  
They nodded and ran and/or jumped over to where he was, avoiding the electric attack. When the three of them lined up, Vaati saw his chance…and fired the blue energy balls again. Quickly realizing what they had to do Mario hit one with his hammer, while Link slashed one with his sword and Bario sent two flying back.

They flew straight, and each one hit one of Vaati's protective eyeballs, causing them to disappear. The force momentarily stunned Vaati and knocked him to ground, with his large eye wide open.

Mario, Bario and Link all charged, with first Mario's hammer smacking the eye, followed by Bario's swords cutting into, and finally with Link's sword driving into the pupil. Vaati let out his final shriek and glared at the Smashers as he began to collapse in on himself.

"You…may have defeated me…but Ganondorf…shall kill you all…I really hate you."  
What was left of Vaati then exploded into the cloud of pink dust, which not only healed everyone, restoring Meta-Knight, but also repairing the damage to their clothes, such as the big slash on Link's back. Quite happy that their most difficult fight was over, but worried about Ganondorf, who appeared to be next, the Smashers left, heading for the newly opened door.

However, they were not even close to finishing their journey…and what waited at the end would change all of their lives…forever.


	18. The Wrath of Ganondork…I mean Ganondorf

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Eighteen: The Wrath of Ganondork…I mean Ganondorf.**

The Smashers decided to take a temporary break in the chamber between chambers. They were most likely fighting Ganondorf next, and there was no way he'd be easy. Plus, there were some questions to be asked.

"First thing I want to know Samus," Bario started, earning an "Hmm?" from Samus, "Is why didn't you use your Scan Visor to not only check Vaati's weak points, but also before, in previous fights?"  
Samus answered Bario quickly and coolly, "That's because it takes a bit to scan, and while I am, I can't do anything weapon-wise with my suit, and it also blocks most of my vision. As long as the Scan Visor is on, none of my weapon systems are accessible."

"Well that's a weird system…why'd you design it like that?" Diddy asked.

"Okay, first of all, I didn't design it. An advanced alien race, called the Chozo, designed it. Second, that's so if I'm scanning fragile computer systems, a missile shooting off by accident at that time could cause some serious unwanted damage. Third, it takes to much power from the suit for many of the other systems to work otherwise."  
"Huh…interesting," Bario said, "Can your suit do anything else?"

"Yes, many abilities, which I don't particularly feel like listing."  
Bario nodded and looked at his hands.   
"Yeah, great, but Diddy…how many of those Orange Grenades do you have left?" Falco asked.

"Uh…I think…four…why?"  
"Because those things cause massive damage…and I had an idea."  
"What idea?"  
"That thing that makes unlimited ammo for the peanut guns…would that-"

"Work for my grenades…no. I've already tried. It just isn't designed for something that complicated."  
"Oh." Falco said, "Hey, did I ever tell you about this crazy guy named Andross?"  
"No…what about him?" Raichu asked.

As this conversation was going on Mario walked over to Bario and whispered something to him. Bario's eyes widened and said some things, rather hotly back. Mario frowned and responded, in voice that was heard only by Bario. The others were too busy recounting adventures to hear what was being said, although both Samus and Link were watching them suspiciously.  
"Samus," Link said, sidling up to her.

She jumped, surprised that he talked.

"What?"  
"Can you use anything to pick up what their saying?"

"Yes, my Visor can usually pick up sound if focused on a specific area."  
Link raised an eyebrow, noticing her word choice.  
"Usually?"  
"Something is interfering…all I get from there is static."  
"Bario…" Link said, with a bit of menace.

"What about him? How could he be doing that?"

"I think there is considerably more to him than he reveals…particularly his proficiency with magic."

Before Samus could respond, Mario and Bario finished talking and Bario turned to Diddy.

"Hey, let me borrow your ammo thing."  
"What? Why?" Diddy asked, confused.

"If I can keep it for a bit, I think I could some of my very limited magic skills to make it compatible for your grenades…how much ammo do you have now?"  
"Enough…if what you say is possible, that would be great. It would really help me beat Giga Bowser."

"Cool! Well, if you'll hand it over, we can get going!"  
Diddy passed it over to Bario, as Link walked passed Samus, whispering, "We'll finish this later."

Bario smiled at the Smashers, and started heading up the staircase, expecting them to follow. They did.

"Alright guys, according to what Vaati said Ganondorf is coming up next. He's powerful, both physically, and mystically, plus he can transform into a massive pig-like demon, which enhances both his physical and mystical abilities considerably. Plus, I don't think he'll be alone, so be ready for anything…everybody ready?"  
They all gave their yes equivalents.  
"Then let's finish this!" Bario said as he opened the door, yanked out his swords and jumped in, a path that was followed by the others as they readied their weapons and faced their foe.

Or foes, as the case may be. For not only was Ganondorf waiting for them, a tall, green skinned, muscular man, with short orange hair, and black armor and gauntlets, with a brownish cape, but he had friends. Big scary, armored friends. They wore silvery armor, and carried humungous axes. Basically they looked like souped up versions of the Darknuts.

"Crap," Bario said.

"What? What are those things? Super Darknuts?" Falco asked.

"Close, they're Iron Knuckles. Big, incredibly durable and those axes cause massive damage."  
Hearing Bario talking, Ganondorf gave a great laugh. The Smashers focused again on him. He was a large man, however he was nowhere near the size of the ten Iron Knuckles that surrounded him…but he still drew attention.  
The Knuckles were just big armored things. They weren't good, but they didn't really seem evil either. They just seemed like puppets, being controlled by a will greater than that of normal men…and it didn't take a whole lot of thinking to figure out whose will was controlling them.

Ganondorf radiated evil, similarly to the previous villains, most noticeably Onox, Veran, Aganihm and Vaati, but on a much grander scale. They were evil; Ganondorf was the embodiment of evil. As well he should, for he was the root of all the problems of Hyrule, just as Bowser was the root for the Mushroom Kingdom.  
Ganondorf seemed to relish his evil and rather than making him seem vile and twisted, it gave him a seductive beauty, that could easily ensnare the unaware…or, if he tried hard enough, the aware. He looked majestic, almost regal…but there was no mistaking that Ganondorf was a killer, a cruel, ruthless killer. Most of the Smashers there had seen Ganondorf before, at the Smashing tournaments, but for Diddy and Raichu, he was new, and it was apparent in their confused horror, that it wasn't a good new thing.

The room fit Ganondorf as well. Large, with several stained glass windows high on the wall, with torches flickering, with a big red carpet, it actually was kind of nice…as massive dungeon like rooms go. With the way the roof peaked, it was pretty obvious that they were at the top of the tower…and it was a long way down. There were also several pillars that reached to the ceiling, and appeared to be connected to the walls of the lower floors.  
"Well little man," Ganondorf said, referring to Bario, "You certainly have done a good job leading your companions here…but that would be expected with your history, wouldn't it?"  
Bario paled, and looked at Ganondorf with fire burning in his eyes.

"How much do you know?!" Bario almost screamed.

The others jumped at the venom and desperation in his voice, surprised, and frightened, as they didn't know what Ganondorf meant.

"As much as I need to know. Believe me Bario, HE has told me that you…well, let's just say I know that you and he go way back…old friends perhaps?" Ganondorf said in a way that made it clear that he really didn't know that much, he was just trying to get Bario to reveal more.

Bario calmed down, and in a much more controlled voice responded.

"As if. Now Ganondorf, stop wasting our time. Either surrender…or prepare to die."

Ganondorf frowned, realizing that Bario wasn't going to give him any more information…and HE wasn't going to say anything else. Oh well. It's not like it'd matter, not when these fools were going to die in a couple of minutes.  
"You know what my answer would be for surrendering, but I think rather than just getting into a big scary fight, how about we have a little match. One of my Knuckles, vs. one of you, you choose."  
Startled the Smashers looked at Ganondorf with confusion.  
"And why would we do that?" Bario asked.

"Simple. If he wins, the rest of my Knuckles will sit out, and you'll only have to fight me."  
"And if he loses?" Falco asked.

"If he loses…then you're out a companion and ally. Once the battle starts, you can't interfere or end it, but that works on my end too. What do you say?"  
The Smashers looked at each other hesitantly. It was a good deal. No Iron Knuckles in the fight? That would make defeating Ganondorf so much easier…but who would do it? Who could take on an Iron Knuckle and win? Link? Bario? Sa-

"Okeydokey!" Mario said, jumping forward.  
"Mario?!" Samus said

"Excellent," Ganondorf said, oozing satisfaction.

A single Iron Knuckle plodded slowly towards Mario.  
"Mario! Be careful!" Raichu said.

Mario merely nodded and pulled out his hammer. The Iron Knuckle got within axing distance…and swung!

Mario skillfully hopped over the attack and smashed the Iron Knuckle in the face with his hammer. The blow resounded throughout the very quiet room. A small crack appeared in the armor, but Mario had to hold tightly to the hammer, as that armor was STRONG. That close the Iron Knuckle couldn't really hit Mario with its axe, which allowed Mario to hit it again in the same spot. Before he could strike again however the Knuckle jerked its axe handle out, smacking Mario in the chest, and causing him to lose his grip on his hammer.

Mario landed several feet away from the Knuckle, but the hammer stayed closer. Seeing it lying on the ground, the Knuckle attempted to slash it with its axe…only to have the axe bounce off the surprisingly strong substance.  
"Oh no!" Mario said, shaking his finger as he hopped to his feet and fired three fireballs at the Knuckle, hitting it in the face. He then dashed forward and grabbed his hammer.

Ganondorf watched with a frown. He really didn't expect the plumber to be able to stand up to one of his Knuckles. Heck, he figured the only one there who could, was Link. And maybe Bario…this would be something to report…

"Is he going to be okay?" Diddy asked Bario.

"I'm sure he'll be fine. He's a lot tougher than he looks."  
Link subtly slid up next to Samus. He made a few head motions, and together she and he backed off to the side, while everyone was focusing on Mario's fight.

"What do you want Link?" Samus asked when they were far enough not to be heard, but close enough to not be suspicious.

"Just so you know…no matter how that fight turns out, Ganondorf is going to attack with those other Knuckles."  
"What? How do you know?"  
"It's a Hylian thing. Thanks to extensive training the swordsmen of this place can usually read people very well, and Ganondorf is easy for me anyways, thanks to the times we fought before."  
"So why don't you tell the rest?"

"Because. Isn't Bario a Hylian?"  
Samus nodded, confused as to why that mattered…and then it dawned on her.  
"He should know as well!"  
"Exactly. Either he's not who he says he is, or he just doesn't want to say…either way, it's bad."  
"Well, he could just not be able to read Ganondorf as well as you."  
"Maybe…," Link said, in a way that made it clear that he didn't believe it.

Samus turned away, irritated by Link's suspicion. Sure Bario may be dissimilar, but it was likely he just lived a different life style than Link. Besides, Bario has been a great leader, and saved their lives, more than once. This distrust was completely unwarranted.

Mario managed to deal enough damage to the Knuckle to make its outer armor fall off. Just like the Darknuts however, that only caused it to move faster. It still had a good chunk of armor left, as well.  
Mario ducked under an axe swipe and threw his hammer at the Knuckle. It hit, but Mario didn't stop there. He ran forward, firing fireballs and leapt into the air, grabbing his hammer and smashing both feet firmly in its chest. He then used the last of his momentum to bring his hammer down again on its head. It staggered back, but managed to hit him with the flat of its blade.

Mario scrambled to get to his feet, just as it swung the axe again. Mario pulled out his yellow cape and smacked the axe with it. Thanks to some of the magic of the cape, it spun the Knuckle around, knocking it off balance, so Mario kicked out its legs, knocking it to its knees. A hammer swing to the back of the head sent it sprawling to the ground, where it promptly disintegrated.  
Ganondorf let out a loud groan. After the axe bounced off the hammer he knew that Mario was going to win, but he still hoped…and now…

"Alright Ganondorf! He won! Now get rid of those Iron Knuckles!" Bario said.

Ganondorf cleared his throat. The others didn't exactly notice, thanks to his long cloak, but he had started to float in the air a bit.

"Yes, a deal's a deal…but I had this great idea," he told them.

"What?" Falco said suspiciously.

"What if…my Iron Knuckles, instead of going away…KILL YOU!"

At that the Knuckles plodded slowly forward and Ganondorf floated high in the air, laughing in a deep booming voice with his cape flapping furiously behind him.

"I really don't like your deal!" Bario said as he and the others yanked out their weapons, with Mario jumping back to the relative safety of the group.

The Smashers immediately got into what was now a familiar style, in which they unloaded on the Iron Knuckles with ranged attacks. This was mostly familiar, only now Meta joined with firing small energy balls of his own.

The Iron Knuckles were slower than Darknuts, but apparently could take considerably more damage than them, as they reacted even less, and just kept plodding forward.

Ganondorf laughed at their efforts and charged up a ball of dark energy, which he flung at the Smashers. They dived out of the way, and had to dive again and again as he fired twice more.  
Bario ended up by Link. He looked at Link and pointed to Ganondorf.

"Hey! Let's keep him busy while the others take on the Knuckles!"  
Link narrowed his eyes slightly, but nodded his head. He and Bario ran around the Knuckles, heading for the currently gleefully laughing Ganondorf.

Meanwhile the others were moving fast as the Iron Knuckles had gotten into attack range. Samus rolled away from one as it swung its massive axe, and popped up shooting. Diddy and Raichu cart-wheeled and dashed in opposite directions around another one and let loose with peanuts and electric balls.

Falco ran around an Iron Knuckle, kicking and hitting it, but not doing much more than bruising himself. It smacked him with its axe, like a pro baseball player. He flew through the air, until Mario caught him, and gently put him to the ground.

"Thanks," Falco said, but Mario was already attacking another Iron Knuckle.

Kirby ran through the Iron Knuckles, rapidly switching weapons, from his hammer, to his Cutter sword, even to his bare limbs, hoping to cause some damage. Meta flapped by overhead, slicing out occasionally, but soon stopping when the armor almost knocked the sword out of his hand. Meta was reduced to firing more of those energy balls…but the Iron Knuckles showed little sign of damage.  
Link and Bario managed to escape the main battle and get behind the floating Ganondorf. He didn't seem to notice them, so Link took out his bow and took careful aim…

And fired. The arrow flew rapidly at the unsuspecting Ganondorf…and bounced off his back. He let out a grunt of surprise and spun around. When he saw what had happened he started laughing.

"Please Link! You should know better! A single arrow? As if that could even harm me-Er!" Ganondorf started, before being hit again by an arrow, that also bounced off.  
"Fine. If you won't let me point out how much of a fool you are, I'll just have to kill you, and your friend!" Ganondorf said, sneering at Link and Bario.

Link started to snarl something back, but didn't have enough time as Ganondorf flung an energy ball at them. Link and Bario dodged, just as Ganondorf plummeted to the ground and smashed it, using his Earthquake Punch skill. The shockwave from the attack knocked both Bario and Link off their feet, but before Ganondorf could capitalize on their temporary weakness, Link tossed a bomb at him.

The explosion caused essentially no damage to the wielder of the Triforce of Power, but it did temporarily blind him. It blinded him long enough for both Link and Bario to run up and slash the Gerudo King from opposite sides, with all three of their blades penetrating his armor.

Ganondorf grunted and then did a double backhand, knocking Bario and Link out of the way as he floated up.

"Link! You should tell your friend that only a powerful magical weapon, like the Master Sword or the Light Arrows can cause any lasting damage! He's just wasting our time, fighting with the big boys!" Ganondorf yelled down.

Before Link could respond, Bario yelled back.

"Oh really? Checked your wounds yet, Ganny?"

"What?" Ganondorf said, confused.  
He reached down to touch one of the shallow cuts that Bario made…and drew his hand back, wincing. The skin around that area was seared, and the nerve endings were burned off, and that's why he wasn't feeling any pain.

Ganondorf looked at Bario with new respect, and suspicion…those swords may be mystical, but they sure weren't Master Swords…definitely something to bring up to the boss…

"I'm not going to ask, because you won't tell me…but you have accomplished one thing," Ganondorf said.

"What?" Bario asked.

"I'm through playing!" Ganondorf yelled, charging a massive black ball of energy.

"Move!" Link said, running from Ganondorf, with Bario close behind.

The ball exploded, sending out six large greenish energy balls…that started homing in on Bario and Link. They dived to opposite sides, but the balls split, three chasing Bario, and three on Link.  
Link looked behind him, and realizing that he didn't have a chance of avoiding the attack, he stopped and used a spin attack. His rapid spinning caught all of the energy balls, and flung them back at Ganondorf.

At the same time, Bario smacked two back at Ganondorf, although the third managed to hit him and cause some damage.

Ganondorf attempted to block the balls, but the five of them were too many, and each and every one hit him straight on. The resulting energy explosion sent Ganondorf plummeting to the ground.

He shook off the explosion and slowly staggered to his knees…just in time for Link to stab him in the chest. Link yanked out his sword, but held it ready, in case he needed to use it again.  
Ganondorf looked Link straight in the face, his eyes burning with hatred and anger.

"You…suck…," was all he got out before collapsing to the ground.  
His collapse seemed to take hours. Everyone, Smasher and Knuckle alike seemed to have plenty of time to turn and watch as Ganondorf did his long, agonizing fall. Despite the seeming slowness of the fall, when Ganondorf hit the ground the entire tower shook, and all the Iron Knuckles froze in place.

Link and Bario walked to the center of the chamber, and rejoined with their companions.

"So…does anyone have any idea where we go now? I mean, there are no more doors…" Falco said.

"I thought it was obvious. With Ganondorf dead, we have to leave the tower and find some portal to Giga, and Master Hand." Bario told him.

"Wait, when you say leave…do you mean we have to go all the way back down? That's going to take forever!" Diddy said.

"Yes. Yes it will," Bario said, seemingly not looking forward to it either.

Before anyone could begin the long slow process of going down the Tower, a rumbling shook the chamber.

"What…NO!" Link said, spinning around.

The others followed his example, and saw Ganondorf, eyes literally shining yellow with power, his right fist raised, with a golden triangle glowing on the front of his hand..

"You should know…of all people Link…that it will take more than that to defeat…the Dark Beast, GANON!" he shouted as a burst of white energy encircled the sinister king.  
The Smashers all covered their eyes, as the blinding light was flung to all corners of the room. The light quickly dissipated, and soon they dared to look again…and were stunned by the monster that greeted them.

It was absolutely massive. It stood on four trunk-like legs, but even though it was on all fours it still towered over the Smashers, standing about the size of Giga. It possessed a similar body style to that of a tusked pig, but far more vicious and bestial looking, with green skin, extremely pointed…parts, and a long shock of red hair/fur. Its tail whipped behind its twenty foot long body as it roared…

Ganon, the new creature that stood before them stamped his right front foot nine times. The entire chamber shook, and small chunks of the ceiling fell, fortunately none near the Smashers.  
After each stamp…the Iron Knuckle's vanished in a blaze of green fire. Or at least they appeared to vanish. If it was only that simple.

As the individual flames vanished the armor was gone…and inside were very large shadowy figures, floating a few feet off the ground, that were almost completely black with the exception of dark blue curvy lines, each one carrying a truly massive blade, and its black hole-filled cape billowed in the non-existent breeze…Phantom Ganons. Nine of them.

"This…is really not good," Bario said.

"And the award for understatement goes to…," Samus said, with a hint of good cheer, despite the fact that they appeared seconds from a brutal death.

Bario flashed her a grin, and together the nine Smashers lined up and readied their weapons as the Phantom Ganons lined up in front of their massive master.

Despite the fact that Ganon appeared incapable of showing facial expressions…he seemed to give an evil grin as the Phantom Ganons all fired a large bluish-white energy ball at the Smashers.

"Deflect them back!" Bario yelled.

The others nodded and did their best, with Falco using his reflector, Mario using his cape, Bario slashed at one with his swords, Kirby batted one back with his hammer, Link bumped one back with his shield, and Meta swiped at one.

Diddy, Raichu and Samus had no way of reflecting the attack, so they just dodged out of the way.  
The six reflected attacks all hit the Phantom Ganon that fired them, and they shook for a second, quivering with the painful energy…but then all nine vanished.

"Did we win?" Raichu asked.

The Phantom Ganons appeared right next to the Smashers.

"No," Bario said.

The Phantom Ganons then swung their massive swords at the Smashers. Meta, Bario, Link and Mario all countered with their swords and hammers respectively and the others evaded the attacks.

The Phantom Ganons that were engaged with the weapons of the four Smashers pulled back and swung again, a horizontal strike. This attack was blocked again, and in Mario's case he knocked it to the side and slammed his hammer into the creature. It let out one short shriek and vanished.

"Wow. They're really physically weak!" Falco said, rolling to evade a sword swipe.

"That's convenient!" Bario said, knocking aside the Phantom Ganon's blade with one of his own, and then stepping forward to cut it, and it too died.

Link jumped backward and threw his boomerang at the Phantom Ganon. The boomerang hit it in the head, and Link caught it as he leapt forward and slashed the creature, also killing it.

"Mighty Morphin' Man-Kittens!" Meta said, flying around another strike and skewering the Phantom Ganon, killing it.

The remaining five made a desperate charge for the Smashers, but quickly fell under the swarm of projectile attacks, and whatever close range attacks managed to slip past their guard. Soon…only one was left.

It floated back, wary of getting close, but unwilling to get far enough for the projectiles to come in force. The Phantom Ganon then raised its arm that was not carrying the sword, and created a large pinkish black ball of energy. Before the Smashers could react the ball exploded into nine smaller balls…that homed in on each of the Smashers.

However they had been fighting for a while now, and were able to easily predict how an attack like this would work. It didn't take much for each Smasher to dodge, block, or deflect it.  
The deflected balls, which came from Mario, Link and Bario, hit the Phantom Ganon, momentarily stunning it. Link seized the opportunity, jumped forward and stabbed it.

Unlike the others it did not immediately perish, and in fact managed to smack Link with the flat of its large blade, sending him crashing into Falco. The Phantom Ganon then vanished…but this vanishing seemed different…it didn't appear dead…

And it wasn't. Four Phantom Ganons suddenly appeared, one by Mario, one by Meta, one by Samus, and one by Bario. Each one swung its sword. The two sword users and the hammer user tried to block the attack, but the sword went right through them and the creature vanished.

Samus on the other hand was not as fortunate as the sword slammed into her midsection. Part of her armor was cut open and she went back a few steps. The Phantom Ganon raised its sword high, prepared to strike again…

Link scrambled up from the ground, extracting himself from Falco. Seeing Samus about to be hit again his eyes went wide and he started running…although there was no way he'd make it in time…

"NOOOO!" He cried, leaping forward…just as Bario cut through the creatures head, destroying it, and stopping the sword an inch above Samus's head. Link skidded, halting, two feet from Samus.   
She looked at him, her thanks not obvious through her mask, although she did say one thing…

"Thanks."

Okay…maybe it was obvious.

Link stood up slowly, glaring at Bario. Bario looked back at Link, confused. Link opened his mouth, about to make a hot reply, when Raichu called out.

"Uh…guys…what are we going to do about…THIS?"  
Ganon, in his new beastly form reared up and slammed down on the ground, shaking the entire room. Roaring he pawed the ground…and charged.

Scattered around the room, even the over-sized Ganon couldn't hit all of the Smashers…so he just went right for Bario, Link and Samus.

Link and Samus started shooting arrows and missiles, but they didn't appear to affect him, as Bario prepared to strike when Ganon got close enough. Suddenly a large quantity of dark squares formed some sort of portal in front of Ganon, and he vanished into it.

Several of the Smashers took a step back in surprise. Falco, who was standing by Raichu and Diddy about twenty feet from Link, Samus, and Bario, sent Bario a questioning glance.

"Uh…where did he go…?"  
"I don't know-"

Before Bario could finish a second portal, identical to the one Ganon vanished entered into, appeared behind Falco, the monkey and the mouse.

"AGH! Run!" Bario yelled.

"What?" Diddy asked, turning around…just as Ganon came flying out of the portal, body-slamming the three.  
"OW!" they screamed before they brutally skidded across the ground, before bumping into the wall.

Ganon roared and pawed the ground. Despite his seeming bestiality, when his small inhuman eyes met the Smashers in the eyes there was a definite feeling of cruel malice, and a vicious intellect. He almost seemed to be laughing at them and their seeming ineffectiveness.

Mario didn't like being laughed at.

"Woohoo!" he shouted, before jumping towards Ganon, firing fireballs.

Ganon blinked as they hit him in the face…and then began laughing, in a deep guttural, almost growl. At least, he was laughing until three arrows appeared in his right foot.

He turned to face Link…and Samus let loose a fully charged shot that slammed into his face. Ganon actually yelped, but before he could do anything besides shrink back, Samus fired three missiles, along with Link shooting a few more arrows.

Ganon yelped again…dashed forward…and vanished into a portal that appeared in front of him again. One of Link's arrows smacked into the ground, just missing the Dark Beast.

"Crap!" Bario yelled, as he and the others looked wildly around for Ganon.

A portal opened up fifteen feet away from Meta, and the Smashers pointed their weapons at it...but it vanished quickly.

"What?" Raichu said, as he, Diddy and Falco had recovered mostly from their tackle, and now they, like everyone else was edging closer together…especially as portal after portal opened up, with each one disappearing soon after. At least, each one until one on the edge suddenly caused Ganon to burst out charging.  
He ran around them, staying on the outside of the room, completely destroying the pillars, and sending debris flying everywhere. Several of the Smashers suffered minor cuts and abrasions.

After running around once, Ganon faced the Smashers…and charged. Unsurprisingly.  
Almost every Smasher that could fire projectiles fired their projectiles at the beast. Diddy's peanuts bounced off, Raichu's electric balls did nothing, and Falco's shots were like bee stings, while Meta's sword created energy balls dissipated upon contact. Link's arrows were ineffective, and Samus's missiles weren't shooting fast enough to make a difference.

They prepared to get in close combat with Ganon…when Mario leapt forward. His hammer pocketed, and his stance changing…it looked like he was going to try to wrestle Ganon down!

"Mario! Don't be a-" Link started…before Ganon slammed into Mario at full speed…and Mario scooted back an inch, before he got his arms on Ganon's head…and held him back."What…?" Diddy said.

Ganon growled and tried to move forward…but Mario clutched harder…and flipped him onto his side.  
"I'm impressed." Samus said.

"NOW! Attack!" Bario said.  
Mario stood by Ganon, panting like mad, as Bario, Link and Meta all ran over, with Kirby in tow. The four then started hammering at Ganon, which in Kirby's case, was literal. Ganon yelped and tried to strike out, but his current form wasn't designed to fight from a horizontal position. He was however able to roll himself over, and almost managed to crush Kirby.

"Back off guys!" Bario said.

Ganon leapt forward, right at Link…and vanished into a portal, just as the Charge Shot Samus was charging was fired, and passed right by the edge of his tail.

"Where'd he go?!" Samus yelled, waving her Arm Cannon around wildly.

The Smashers huddled up again, as portals started appearing like crazy. The area around the Smashers almost seemed to get darker from the tension.

"Get ready…" Bario said.

The portals were opening faster and faster and the area around the Smashers WAS getting darker…and there was a strange whooshing sound…

Link looked down, and then jerked his head up.  
"MOVE!" He said, tackling Samus out of the group.

The others looked up, and then bolted…as Ganon slammed down from where a portal had opened up…ABOVE them. The ground shook and all the Smashers, despite avoiding getting crushed were knocked off their feet.

Ganon roared, although it sounded weaker than before. He stomped forward, and lifted his foot, and brought it down on Link and Samus!  
At least, that's what Ganon wanted to happen. What actually happened was that Samus and Link rolled in opposite directions, and while Link rolled he slashed at Ganon's foot. Ganon yelped and smacked Link with his injured foot, sending him rolling away.

Bario clambered up, ready to attack…when he saw Ganon changing.

He stood up, and shrank a couple feet. He took on more of a bipedal creature from, although he was still very piggish, and his long tail still whipped out behind him. Two massive blades grew from his arms, that in his hands looked almost small, but were large enough to outweigh Link's, Bario's and Meta's swords by a considerable margin…and he held two!

"Oh…crap." Bario said.

Bario started running towards Ganon, while Link stood up and faced the creature. Ganon swiped at Link, and Link attempted to block it with his shield. He was successful in preventing the blade from harming him, but the sheer power behind the strike knocked him over. Ganon raised his sword up again when…

"Hey!" Bario shouted…as he stabbed Ganon's tail.

Ganon shrieked and spun around extremely fast, and his long arms came with. Bario was smacked in the side by one of Ganon's arms…fortunately it wasn't one of his blades, and was sent flying.  
"Yah!" Link shouted as he jumped up and stabbed at Ganon's tail, a spot which appeared to be his weakness.  
Another shriek and he spun around again…right into a missile in the face from Samus. Ganon growled and swiped at her, but she rolled out of the way. Ganon took a menacing step forwards…only to have Meta skewer his tail.  
An immensely loud shriek…but this one almost appeared to have words in it, unlike the previous ones…

"GAHHHHENOUGHAAAHHHNOMOREGAHAAAAPLAYINGAROUND!"

Ganon slammed the two blades together. The onrushing storm of power from this sent Meta, Link and Samus tumbling far away from him. The tower shook again, and almost seemed to crack on the walls…but that's just crazy…the blades merged together and lengthened, to form a large silver trident as long as Ganon.  
Ganon laughed and spun his trident around, creating a circle of flame that spread out around him. Most of the Smashers ducked under them, but Falco got smacked and knocked down, with his shirt burning until Kirby stamped it out.

"Thanks…but…ow," Falco said.

"Now it's over for you. No one can stop me! Even you Link, will die by the power granted to me by Master Hand!" Ganon shouted, while laughing maniacally.

"Why do villains always feel compelled to tell us about their plans? Does it make them feel better about themselves?" Falco asked.

"Oh shut up," Ganon said while thrusting his trident at him.

Falco ducked under the blade, and Ganon pulled it back and spun it around again, creating a circle of flaming bats that flew at the Smashers. But as with many other attacks, although it was not expected, it was easily avoided.  
Ganon growled and prepared to do another attack, when Link threw his boomerang at Ganon. It looked like it was aimed at his head, but it seemed off balance and bounced off his chest before returning to Link.

"What was the point of-" Ganon started, before the bomb that was attached to the boomerang exploded by his tail. He screamed in pain, spun his trident and went transparent, just in time to avoid a few peanuts from Diddy. He then teleported behind Link, became solid and smacked him across the room.

He started charging up a massive energy ball, when Meta flew at him, stabbing wildly at Ganon's face. Ganon stopped charging and punched him, but then Samus hit him with several missiles. Falco started peppering him with laser shots, and Mario assisted with fireballs. Ganon roared and tried to cover his face…when Bario, who had snuck behind Ganon, used a double sword strike…to completely remove Ganon's tail.

Ganon let out a scream so loud that the entire tower shook. He fell forward and slammed into the ground, face-first, with the resulting shock wave causing deep cracks in the ground. As he lay there he shrunk back into Ganondorf, causing many of the Smashers to breathe a deep sigh of relief.

Panting heavily Ganondorf forced himself to a kneeling position. He looked up…and saw Link with a sword at his throat.

"Heh…come…on Link…you can't kill me…"

"Watch me."

Link pulled his sword back, prepared to deal the death blow…when something large and white burst through the ceiling. This wasn't over…


	19. Attack of the Annoying Army

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Nineteen: Attack of the Annoying Army…although it's not really an army if there's only three…hmm…**

Bario raised his hand up to deflect several of the small chunks of rubble that was flying through the air. Looking up in alarm he saw the white object stretch out into a hand. His first thought was that it was Master Hand…but a closer examination of the wildly twitching appendage showed that it was his lesser known counterpart, Crazy Hand.

Link looked up, surprised by the noise, and the new arrival. Quick as a flash, Ganondorf jumped up from his kneeling position, nailing Link with an uppercut to the jaw. Link flew back several feet, and Ganondorf stepped back as well.

"Oh crap. This guy again?" Diddy asked.

"This one's different. This guy's Crazy Hand." Bario said, tensing up.

"I've got a bad feeling about this…," Raichu said.

The Smashers prepared themselves for a fight…but it turned out they needn't bother, as Crazy Hand charged up a large energy ball…and flung it behind Ganondorf. Instantly a large portal, identical to the one Master Hand and Giga Bowser escaped through appeared.

"No!" Link shouted, trying to get up.

"Sorry Link, we'll have to finish this another time. Don't worry though…I've left behind suitable entertainment," Ganondorf, just oozing malevolent mirth.  
Crazy Hand twitched a bit before shooting up a large ball of light that floated up to the hole in the ceiling…and exploded, sending out a blinding flash of light, that not only filled the entire chamber, but also shot out above the tower.

The Smashers covered their eyes, and blinked rapidly as Ganondorf jumped through the portal. A few of their eyes had cleared enough for them to watch Crazy Hand give them a twisted little wave, before vanishing through it as well.

Immediately after that the portal started to close. Link yelled in anger and charged for it, dodging small chunks of rubble that still fell from the hole in the ceiling.  
"Wait a second…that portal must lead to where Giga is hiding…he won't get away now!" Diddy yelled, before following Link.  
"Wait!" Bario yelled, reaching out, but narrowly missing grabbing Diddy.  
Raichu managed to dash forward and grab him, just as a truly massive chunk of ceiling came crashing down…and slammed a five-foot wide hole through the floor. Large cracks webbed out from the hole.

"Diddy! Don't do that!" Raichu admonished him.

Diddy pushed Raichu off him, embarrassed about almost getting killed but irritated about missing his chance. Link jumped for the rapidly closing portal…and it vanished just before he hit it. He fell roughly to the ground.

He looked up, and glared at the familiar surroundings. Slowly getting to his feet he gave a howl of frustration, and started walking back towards the others, now that the debris was not falling in great quantities anymore.

"Sorry Link," Bario said, sounding seriously sincere.

Link just glared at him and stood off to the side, after walking around the hole.

"Okay, Ganondorf is gone, this tower doesn't appear to stable…and we have no way to get off this world…what the heck do we do?!" Falco said, his voice rising in volume with every word.

"Well Falco…I have an idea-" Bario started, when three of the tall windows near the roof of the tower were shattered as three different…things came flying through them.

Link looked up, and saw each of them…and paled in a fear he had never shown…not even when facing Ganon.

The first creature was small, about the size of a fist, and for all intents and purposes, appeared to be a blue glowing ball of light with translucent wings sticking out.

The second was a large owl, easily four feet tall, with an impressive wing span, wise owly eyes and dark brown and black markings.  
The third was the strangest, and the only one without wings. It was a strange short man, about five feet tall, and pudgy, with rosy cheeks and a childish expression of joy. He wore entirely green tights, with a strange upwards pointing hat, and what appeared to be red underwear on his waist area. Rounding out the bizarre ensemble was his bright red small hot air balloon, through which he was clearly using for travel.

"Who the heck are these people?" Diddy asked, hesitant, and confused, because they didn't seem particularly evil, so Link's terrified reaction seemed misplaced.

"The most terrible beings in all of Hyrule…" Link said.

"Oh come now! Is that anyway to treat your bestest fairy friend, Navi?" The glowing blue ball asked in a rapid high-pitched feminine voice.

"Yes, I, Kaepora Gaebora, the wisest person in all of Hyrule agree. You're being rather rude Link," said the large owl.

"Ah! Mister Fairy! I knew you would be here! The nice tall green man said to come when the light flashed! It's been a while! Tingle missed you!" said the green clothed man.

"Please…go away! LEAVE!" Link practically shrieked.

"Link! Chill. Why are you so upset?" Bario asked.

Link glared at Bario, but seeing the other Smashers looking quizzically at him, he decided to answer.

"These are the most annoying creatures in all of Hyrule…Navi is EXTREMELY annoying, the owl won't shut up…and do I even need to say anything about Tingle?!"  
Navi flashed brighter, and when she spoke, her voice was tinged with rage.

"Annoying?! I helped you stop Ganondorf, you ungrateful skirt wearing pansy!"  
"Help?! You didn't help! All you did was yell at me and tell me to stab things in the head, or 'The weak points the eyes! Attack the eyes!' And let's not forget your _helpful_ advice when you told me to stab the glowing 'thingy'!"

"That IS helpful!" Navi shouted.

"SHUT UP!" Bario yelled.

Link and Navi shut up.

"Now I don't know what you're problems are…but what I want to know is why are you three here?" Bario asked.

"Why are we here? That's a good question. A good question can only be answered with an equally good answer. Good answers usually come from good people…or in my case, owls, but what is good? Is it the absence of evil? A desire to help others? For if that is true, than goodness is rooted in selfishness. Those that do good do it to feel better about themselves, a selfish desire…and selfishness is considered to be an "evil" emotion…so therefore, since all good acts are selfish…than isn't goodness itself…evil?" Kaepora Gaebora asked.

"Interesting point…but you didn't ANSWER MY QUESTION!" Bario shouted.

"We are here, to distract you and keep you busy while Ganondorf's Tower falls on you." The owl said.

"What?" Diddy asked.

"Falls?" Raichu asked.

As if in answer to the question, the tower shook again, and the cracks spider webbed out even farther.

"Oh crap! We won't have enough time to escape!" Bario said.

"That's the plan! Want to buy a map?" Tingle asked.

"Why are you doing this?! What advantage is in it for you?!" Bario asked them.

"Ganondorf promised me great power…so I could CRUSH those insignificant worms back in Kokiri Forest," Navi said.

"I was told that I would have an audience that wouldn't throw rocks at me after my thirteenth telling of how to walk in a forward direction," Kaepora Gaebora said.

"And he said I would become a FAIRY! YAY!" Tingle said.

"Navi! How could you help Ganondorf?!" Link asked.

"It was easy. He was nicer than you."  
"How was he NICER?! I put up with you for seven years!"  
"Yeah, but you were SLEEPING most of that time!"

"LINK!" Samus shouted.

Link jumped and looked at her in confusion.

"What?"  
"We don't have time for this. This tower is severely unstable, and we need to find those Bowser and Ganondorf guys!"  
"She's right," Kaepora said, "You don't have much time left…ATTACK!"

Tingle giggled and threw several bombs from his high perch. They fell to the ground and exploded near Samus and Kirby, who dived from the explosion. Falco pulled out his gun and aimed at Tingle…when Kaepora tackled him from behind.

"Falco! Perhaps I should teach you proper aiming techniques?" Kaepora asked, as he tried to claw out Falco's eyes.

"How about…NO!" Falco said, landing a solid kick on the owl, knocking him back, but causing his legs to fly out and claw up Falco.   
Diddy and Raichu turned to each other in confusion…this was not expected, but then they found themselves on the ground, having both been body-slammed by the surprisingly powerful Navi.  
"The weak points are…your entire bodies! Ha ha!" she cackled, her glow flickering with every word.

Link and Bario pulled out their swords and faced Tingle, who laughed and threw some more bombs down. Bario batted them away with his sword, and they exploded harmlessly to the side…well, maybe not so harmlessly. The explosions caused the cracks on the floor to widen, opening up several inch wide holes that extended down to previous floors, which were developing their own holes.

Link took out his bow, and with one hand holding the sword and the arrow, he fired it. It penetrated Tingle's balloon and he fell fifteen feet before landing roughly to the ground. Before either swordsman could consider him incapacitated, he hopped up, with a large, ridiculous grin on his face.

"Ah good shot Mr. Fairy! But it will be nothing to the shots I shall shoot when I become a fairy!" Tinge said.

"Tingle!" Link said, "You're insane, moronic…and what do you _freaking _mean 'When you become a fairy'? You always say that! What do you think a fairy _is_?!"  
Tingle looked taken aback.

"My back has been taken!"  
"What?" Bario said.

"I mean…what do you mean what do I think a fairy is? A fairy is a fairy, an awesome being of extreme coolness!"  
"No. A fairy is THAT," Link said, pointing to Navi.

Tingle followed his finger, and saw Navi flying around Diddy and Raichu, and Kirby as well, as all three tried to hit the small speedy target. Tingle's eyes grew wide, and his mouth dropped in shock.

"That's…bright…shiny…but…no…how?" Tingle stammered.

"Yeah, that's a fairy. I'm not a fairy, so stop calling me Mr. Fairy you brainless moron!"  
"Fairies are…EVEN BETTER THAN I THOUGHT!" Tingle shouted.

"You got to be kidding me," Bario said.

"I can't wait to become one! The only thing standing in my way is…YOU GUYS!" Tingle said, turning to face Bario and Link.

They raised their weapons, prepared for an attack…but not THIS attack.

"Tingle-Tingle, Kooloo-Limpah!" he shouted, while spinning around and throwing shiny glitter in the eyes of Bario and Link.

"Agh!" Link and Bario shouted at the same time, dropping their swords and scrubbing at their eyes.

Tingle giggled again and yanked out a large satchel of maps.

"Buy my maps!" he shouted, spinning the satchel around and smacking Bario to the ground, and then doing the same to Link. He then dropped the satchel on both of them, and threw a "Tingle Bomb" at the satchel.

It exploded, and hurt Bario and Link, but it also split open the bag, covering the two with maps. Tingle assisted in their confusion as they tried to get up from the rolled up papers, by throwing more around.

"This is ridiculous!" Link said, trying to find his sword.

Tingle grabbed another bomb…just as Mario hammered him in the back.

"Ack!" Tingle said, dropping the bomb as Mario flipped over him. Then Tingle's bomb exploded at his feet, sending him flying.  
Mario helped move the maps, throwing several of them down the rapidly growing holes, and soon Bario and Link had their swords and were fighting ready, but Tingle didn't look quite so eager to fight anymore, as he rapidly scuttled away from the three.

Falco decided that Kaepora's biggest advantage was his flight, so he decided to stay in close combat, to prevent him from taking off. Unfortunately his big thick wings, sharp taloned feet and pointy beak, aided the owl in close combat.  
Falco and Kaepora exchanged many a blow, and it might have gone on forever, or at least until the tower fell on them, if Meta didn't slice through several feathers. The owl backhanded…backwinged? Meta, but was distracted long enough for Samus to hit him with a missile.

Navi was gleefully dancing around Kirby, Diddy and Raichu, when a large brown, birdlike object slammed into her. The owl and the fairy both crashed into Tingle and the three ended up in a heap.  
Taking advantage of the opportunity, the nine Smashers surrounded the three annoying creatures, weapons drawn, and they were very careful to avoid the holes and debris, as the tower seemed to be falling apart even faster now.

Tingle, Navi and Kaepora Gaebora got up and glared at the Smashers.

"I won't let you stop me from becoming a fairy!" Tingle yelled.

"I won't let you stop me from becoming ridiculously powerful!" Navi exclaimed.

"I won't let you stop me from hitting you with our ultimate attack!" Kaepora said.

"Oh yeah well…wait what was that last one?!" Bario asked.

"It's time for our most powerful, group attack! Prepare to feel mild to extreme discomfort…as we OBLITERATE you!" Kaepora screamed, as the three started to glow with energy.

"Uh guys…kill them!" Falco said.

It was too late. They were just about to unleash their horrible attack when a several hundred pound mass of the ceiling slammed down on top of them, squishing them instantly and creating a hole to the bottom of the tower.

There was a brief moment of stunned looks, before Diddy broke the silence.

"That was surprisingly anti-climactic."  
Then the tower broke the silence by collapsing more rapidly. The Smashers moved like the wind to avoid chunks of the ceiling, and to jump over the holes that were appearing and widening, as the walls became a shattered mirror of cracks.

"What do we do?! How are we going to get out of here?!" Falco asked.

"Like this," Bario said, shooting his hand forward in a fist, like he was punching something…and a purple ball of energy flew out in front of him and expanded quickly to make a portal ten feet in front of Bario.

"What?" Link said.

"Everyone in if you don't want to die!" Bario yelled, flipping over a chunk of rock that was falling and he dove into the portal.  
Everyone ran for the portal, and Link ended up by Samus, while Kirby, Mario and Meta dived in.

"Is this a good idea? Where does this portal go?!" He asked.

At that moment the cracks in the wall grew too much, and all four walls collapsed, with the ceiling exploding outward in a stream of unrepressed dark magic, as the last bits of Ganondorf's mystic energy holding the tower together evaporated, allowing the full brightness of the sun to stream in. The walls collapsed farther down, like dominoes and the entire floor started to crumble.

"Really not a good time to question our salvation!" Samus said, before diving in herself.  
Link sighed, and seeing no other alternative jumped in as well, with Raichu, Diddy and Falco close behind. The portal slowly closed, and in a few short seconds, Ganondorf's once mighty tower…was dust and stone. The area they arrived in however…was not…


	20. Samus Aran’s Betrayal

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Twenty: Samus Aran's Betrayal**

The second trip through a portal was much the same as the first. The Smashers experienced an experience that seemed to last forever, and take no time whatsoever. Each visual experience was different, and while the shifting ride through a technicolor light show wasn't exactly pleasant…it wasn't terribly unpleasant either, as it was a nice lull between the fighting. A lull…that didn't last very long.

Like a nap that someone was rudely woken up from the Smashers were deposited rather roughly on the ground. However this ground was a strange grayish color, and seemed to almost glow…but it was an eerie and faint gray glow. Bario and Mario were the first to be dropped to the ground, and they were the first to see the chamber they were in.

It seemed to be small, about ten feet wide, and five feet long, with a ceiling that was shrouded in darkness a few feet above their heads, making its height indeterminable. There was no visible door, but there was an opening in the wall that seemed to branch off in two different directions, after hitting another wall.

Bario and Mario looked at each other and nodded before heading towards the opening; in the dimly lit chamber…when from the right path came a missile. Bario rolled to the side and it just missed him. Mario and Bario glimpsed a character in orange armor, before avoiding another missile. They dodged again and ran down the left path, trying to get some distance and figure out what was going on…

Shortly after them, Diddy and Raichu popped out of the portal. They had about three seconds to look around before they too avoided a missile. They looked at each other, and wordlessly ran down the same path as Mario and Bario…which soon turned into another fork, upon which they went left.

Meanwhile on the right path, Mario and Bario stopped in a small alcove to catch their breath.

"So Mario…" Bario started.

Mario looked up at Bario, his large brown eyes narrowing.

"Yes?"

Falco, Kirby and Meta were the next three to pop out of the portal. Not seeing the others…or anyone else they turned and looked at each other.

"So uh guys…where is everyone…we definitely weren't the first or the last in the portal…" Falco said.

"Okay!" Kirby cheerfully responded.

"You're first mistake…was having BONES!" Meta said in an intentionally spooky voice.

"Oh yeah…you guys aren't big on conversations," Falco said, rubbing his head, "Well I guess we better get going, maybe we'll find the others."  
Nodding the other two followed Falco…down the right path…

The last straggling Smashers, Link and Samus were the next to pop out of the portal, thirty seconds after Falco and the other two left. When they climbed to their feet, the portal closed, making it very clear the Smashers weren't leaving any time soon.

Samus looked around, and upon realizing where they were, gave a start.

"This…this is…" She stammered.

Link looked at her, confused.

"What? What's wrong?"  
"This…is Zebes…" Samus said.

Raichu and Diddy paused after they realized no one was behind them, and they had run for a bit. They took a seat and looked around them. Now that their eyes had adjusted they could see better, but the dim glow still only illuminated ten feet around them. Keeping their ears open for any sign of their mysterious, but strangely familiar attacker they turned to face one another.

"Well that was not very fun." Diddy said.

"I agree…do you know where we are?" Raichu asked him.

"No…this definitely isn't Kong Island…or well like anyplace else I've ever been."

"Well, if that thing that shot at us is gone, we should probably go back and find the others."

"Okay," Diddy said, turning around.

Unfortunately, in front of him were three different paths, each shortly vanishing into darkness.

"That's not good," Raichu said, who, like Diddy did not know which one they had come out of.

"Well…I know where we are now," said Diddy.

"What? Where?" Raichu asked.

"We're in a maze."

Mario and Bario were walking through the maze, attempting to find the others. The maze was quite large…potentially as large as some of the rooms in Ganondorf's Tower…but because most of it was covered in darkness, it was difficult to ascertain its true size.

After a few minutes they came to a junction of two other paths…and coming out of the one directly across from them was…Falco, Kirby and Meta!  
"Guys! Hey! Over here!" Bario said, waving his arms.

Seeing him Falco and the other two smiled and started running. Falco stopped at the sound of a light clanking noise, which was oddly familiar. Turning towards the third pathway, his eyes widened as he saw something that Mario and Bario did not.

All Bario heard was a loud FWOOSH, and something whizzed through the third pathway, before it hit and exploded right on Kirby. A second and third came towards Falco and Kirby, who managed to avoid most of the blasts.

"Stop!" Bario called to them, "Go back! Grab Kirby and go back!"  
The junction was too dangerous apparently to cross. Nodding, Falco and Meta grabbed Kirby and ran/flew back down their tunnel. Mario and Bario walked into central area, which was rather large compared to the small path, hallway things, and got their first real look at their pursuer. They both let out gasps of surprise, as their attacker leveled her weapon at them…

Samus and Link were well and thoroughly lost…but seeing as everyone else in the maze was also lost, this wasn't exactly breaking news. What WAS breaking news however was the fact that the Smashers had apparently reached the underground tunnels of Zebes, a planet that Samus knew quite well…

"We ended up on a planet that you've been to before?" Link asked, as he and Samus walked cautiously through the maze.

"Multiple times…but I thought it was destroyed, after I wiped out the Space Pirate presence here…twice. Something's up…and I don't understand how you're breathing, I was led to believe that Zebes was uninhabitable by human standards…but then again, I never tried to take my suit off, so I could be wrong."  
"Speaking of suit, why don't you take it off…This whole journey you've been wearing it…and I'm kind of curious to see what you look like." Link said, and despite the suggestive words he used, his tone made it clear that he was just feeling honest curiosity, and all he wanted was to see the face of one of his traveling companions.

Samus looked away, and in a loud voice said, "We should keep going."

Link sighed and shook his head, but before he could respond, he heard several loud explosions from a good distance away.

"Come on! That's got to be the others!" Link shouted.

Samus nodded, and the two ran off in the general direction of what sounded like an intense fight. They were not anywhere near it however…

Diddy and Raichu, who also heard the noises, were nearby, and they soon stumbled upon Mario and Bario engaged in combat with…

"SAMUS?!" Raichu yelled.

"What's going on?! Mario, Bario!" Diddy shouted.

"Sorry, love to chat, but fighting for our lives here!" Bario said, deflecting a missile and attempting to slash the speedily strafing armored heroine.  
"Stop! Stop fighting!" Raichu yelled, running towards them.  
In the blink of an eye, Samus turned her arm cannon on Raichu, and fired a missile. Stunned that she was attacking him, he didn't move…until Diddy dived in and hit Raichu from behind, knocking him over, and taking the full force of the attack.  
Severely injured, Diddy lost consciousness.

Mario looked over, shook his head and fired some fireballs at Samus, distracting her long enough for him to jump over and scoop him up. He dashed down the central path, with the injured chimp secure in his arms.

"Damn!" Bario said, rolling away from a blue beam shot by Samus.

Raichu, still completely bewildered staggered to his feet.

"Why Samus?! Why?" he asked, shaking slightly.

"Raichu! Don't worry about that, and help me incapacitate her!" Bario commanded.

Confused, Raichu nodded and decided to do the simplest thing…obey Bario.

Samus looked hesitantly from Bario, who was mostly unscratched, to Raichu, who was starting to crackle with electricity. Not liking her chances she backed up to the left path…and rolled up into her Morph Ball form.

"What?" Raichu said, temporarily ceasing his charging.

Bario peered intensely at Samus…as she dropped a small glowing yellow ball that began to pulsate rapidly. Quickly Samus rolled down the left path.  
"Oh…no…" Bario said quietly, eyes widening, "RUN!"

He dashed towards the right path, it being the farthest from the ball, grabbing one of Raichu's short arms and half-carrying, and half-dragging him along. Raichu soon caught on, and started running on his own. They were about ten feet down the path…when the ball exploded.

Samus and Link were knocked to the ground by the Power Bomb explosion, and even through they were a good distance away, the explosion seemed to seep through the walls…creating large cracks.

"What was that!?" Link yelled, not expecting his question to be answered.

Samus quickly scanned the walls with her Visor.

"That was…a Power Bomb…" she said, with a slightly stunned tone.

"A what?"  
"A Power Bomb. An extremely powerful explosive that I gain the ability to use in my Morph Ball form."  
"You mean those little blue balls? Those aren't that bad." Link said.

"NO!" Samus responded with surprising vehemence, "These are different. I haven't used them up until now to prevent any of you guys getting injured…and one was just set off."

"What does that mean?"  
"It means…that someone else has at least one of the capabilities from my weapons…and perhaps more…"

Falco was trying to figure out what was going on. Kirby was injured, he was running…and Samus had just tried to attack them.

_Samus. _The nine Smashers had by now spent approximately three days journeying, and battling, and it was only the energy boosts that they had been getting from their foes that had kept them from keeling over from sheer exhaustion. Falco thought he knew all of them reasonably well, even the mysterious Samus…but apparently not.

It really made him mad, when people betrayed others. He never liked that Pigma guy, and Samus trying to kill them all… her intentions were especially obvious with her assault on Kirby…really pissed him off.

He looked up, as Meta said some random gibberish…and saw two people down a side passage…and one of them was…

"SAMUS!"

Diddy slowly opened his eyes…and closed them slowly, as gray lights flashed by his face. He let out a low groan, and immediately Mario stopped running.

Mario gently lowered Diddy to the ground and took a quick look through their surroundings, verifying that they were not in danger.

"Mario? What's going on?"  
Mario looked carefully at Diddy, but didn't respond.

"Oh right…you don't say much do you?" Diddy said, disappointed/

"No. I don't." Mario said, in a surprisingly calm voice, without a hint of his normal good natured cheer.

Diddy raised an eyebrow, and stood up, his head reaching Mario's stomach, forcing him to look up quite a ways.

"What-"

"Now is not a good time for discussion. We have to find the others."

Diddy nodded and then had to jog a bit, as Mario started walking without waiting for a response. There was much more to this plumber…then meets the eye…

Bario and Raichu managed to turn a corner, and avoid the majority of the explosion. They stopped temporarily to take a rest, as all of their energy reserves were getting low, since the last time they got energy from a foe was Vaati, and that was a while ago.

Raichu was still in shocked bewilderment, and after mumbling for a minute, he turned to Bario with a question on his lips…but Bario answered before he could say anything.

"Yes. From what I can see, that was Samus. It looked like her armor, moved like her, and used her weapons quite proficiently. I just don't know what could cause her to turn on us..."  
Raichu cleared his throat and tried to speak again.

"Wh-where are we?"

"Where are we? I don't know…I tried setting the portal to follow Ganondorf and Crazy Hand…but I think I messed up…or…someone tampered with it…"  
Raichu looked at Bario in confusion, as Bario unhurriedly looked over his swords. Tampered? Who could do that? It couldn't be one of the Smashers…could it?

Before the conversation could continue, they both heard several loud voices, and a few shots of some kind of weapon, further down the path.

"Let's go." Bario said, running down the path, quickly followed by a still shocked Raichu.

Samus turned to see who called her, when she got hit in the chest by multiple small laser shots from Falco.

"Die traitor!" he yelled, running at Samus, shooting his pistol like crazy, with Meta Knight flying behind, firing energy balls from his sword tip, one of which hit Link.

"What are you-AGH!" Samus yelped as Falco snap-kicked her midsection, knocking her to the floor.

"I'm not taking any chances!" Falco said, leveling his pistol at her helmet.

Before he could fire, Link threw his Boomerang, and it slammed into Falco's head, knocking him off balance enough for Samus to knock his legs out from under him with a sweep of her feet.

"So Link's in on this too eh? Meta! Get them!" Falco said trying to get back to his feet.

"Oh no you don't," Link said trying to hit Meta with the flat of his sword, before he could presumably attack.

Meta deflected it and rapidly circled around Link, who back-flipped and tried to stab at Meta, a strike which the armored knight blocked easily.

"OMFKK!" Meta said, blocking another strike from Link, before retaliating with a vicious overhead slash.

Meta's larger sword allowed him to push down Link's, before he had to fly back to avoid a blow from Link's shield.

"OMFKK?" Link asked, panting and walking carefully towards Meta.

"Oh My Fudge-muffin Kandy Kittens!" he gleefully stated before flying behind Falco, who was trying to kick Samus, and smacking him in the back of the head with his sword.

Diddy and Mario were the first to reach the scene, having heard the commotion. Kirby, who was still unconscious, had been moved to next to the unconscious Falco. Samus and Link were watching Falco, while Meta flapped around and spoke nonsense.

"Samus!" Diddy said, starting to pull out his peanut pistols.

He had them out in under a second, which was long enough for Samus to train her Arm Cannon on Diddy, and for Link to ready his bow. They were at a stand-off until Mario reached over and gently pushed down Diddy's guns.

"Mario?! What are you doing! She tried to kill us!"  
Before Mario could respond Samus interjected.

"What are you talking about?! Why did Falco attack me? Why is Kirby unconscious? Why were we separated? AND WHY DO YOU THINK I TRIED TO KILL YOU?!" said a clearly upset Samus.

Link nodded his approval of the questions.

Diddy opened his mouth to respond, when from their left they heard a loud and clear, if slightly high voice.

"SAMUS!"

Raichu immediately charged at Samus, crackling with electricity. Before he could hit her, Bario tackled him from behind, knocking him to the ground.

"Wait!"

Raichu struggled to get up, and bright sparks flew out of his body, causing Bario to wince, and eventually get off of the mouse. Before anyone else could say anything however, a large wooden hammer slammed into Samus from behind, sending her sprawling.

"WHAT?!" Link yelled, turning around to get a faceful of Falco's foot, knocking him into Diddy, and sending both of them to the ground.

"Kirby! Raichu! I don't know what's going on, but I know at the very least, Samus, Link and Meta are TRAITORS!" Falco yelled, pulling out his pistol.

"You little-" Samus said, punctuating her sentence with some choice words, and aiming her cannon at Kirby.

"STOP!" Bario commanded. The authority in his voice made everyone unconsciously stop moving.

"I think we need some explanations here," Falco said, still quivering with rage.

"Agreed. But I don't think everything is as it seems here," Bario said with a controlled calm, "You see…I think there are TWO Samus's."

Slowly she walked, scanning everything, watching everything, trying to find her prey. Although "she" isn't entirely accurate…rather "It" would be more appropriate.

This maze was built for it, it knew the twists and turns most intimately…it had spent enough time here for that. But the plan was failing, and the usefulness of the maze was nearing its end…the Smashers were far cleverer than its masters had anticipated…or at least some of them were…

Moving into the appropriate position it prepared to end this farce, and reveal itself.

The creature that wore Samus's armor and face…was close, and soon, very, very soon…it will make its final assault…

"Two Samus's?! What are you, crazy! That's impossible!" Falco shouted.

"Oh please!" Link yelled back, "After everything we've been through and seen on this adventure, you can't honestly think ANYTHING'S impossible now, can you?"

"Perhaps…you want to explain?" Raichu said, struggling to control his temper after being tackled.

"Well, honestly, the person who I think could explain this best…is over there," Bario said, pointing at Samus.

As one, all the Smashers turned and faced Samus. She looked slightly nervous, but pulled herself together and began to talk.

"Okay, I'm not sure as I haven't seen it…but what I think is going on…is that we are being attacked by a SA-X," she said, "It's a…well, perhaps it would be easier if I described the X.

"The X are parasitic organisms that infect and kill their hosts…which is essentially any living creature, and then, from absorbing their DNA can transform into their hosts. One managed to infect me, but thanks to some scientists removing chunks of my suit, and injecting me with Metroid DNA, which is a creature that hunts these things, I managed to avoid death.

"However the X that infected me managed to integrate itself into my suit and turn into a copy of me, with a large portion of my weapons, including my Ice Beam, Missiles, Power Bombs and Screw Attack. There were ten of them at one time, but I killed one and I assumed the rest died when the Space Station they were on exploded. I guess at least one survived…"

Everyone looked very surprised by this information, until Bario cleared his throat.

"A lot of that doesn't make sense…mostly the abilities of the X…but it's not a big deal, and I believe you for the most part."

Samus looked at him, and if her face was visible, it would have shown a large quantity of gratitude. With Bario on her side, the rest of the Smashers agreed, however reluctantly that Samus was not to blame. Raichu had one question however…

"Uh…do you have an Ice Beam?"  
"No…I lost that before I got here…why?"  
"Just hoping…" Raichu said, oddly cryptic.

Before anyone could do anything else, there was a series of explosions all around them…and the walls of the maze crumbled into dust. Surprisingly unhurt the Smashers looked wildly around the room which was lit by the grayish glow of the walls, floor and ceiling, but not lit enough to reveal where the SA-X was…The Smashers strained their eyes to try and pierce the gloom

"Oh forget this! Mario! Raichu! Give us some light!" Bario yelled.

Nodding Raichu charged up a large ball of electricity and shot it up in the air. Mario followed suit with four fireballs aimed at parts of the wall…parts that were revealed to be flammable fungus. The fire spread over the upper walls, bright, but not particularly hot…and then Raichu's ball exploded upon touching the ceiling, illuminating the entire chamber…including the Ice Beam shots that were fired at Samus…

And were dodged by Samus. A flurry of projectiles from the Smashers flew at the SA-X, which was a mere fifteen feet away. It turned into a ball and rolled away, leaving behind a Power Bomb.

"Oh…EVERYBODY! Hit the dirt!" Samus yelled, diving, as everyone else did in the opposite direction from the explosive. It exploded, raining dust on them, but leaving them reasonably unharmed. At least until Diddy stood up and was hit with an Ice Beam and frozen to the spot.

"DIDDY!" Raichu yelled, running to his friend.

"Raichu! He'll be fine! Just attack that thing!" Bario said causing Raichu to stop in time to miss the second Ice Beam shot aimed for him.

Suddenly streams of missiles erupted from Samus's Arm Cannon, and were met in midair by missiles from the SA-X. Getting up and charging she continued firing missiles that were matched by the SA-X as it charged at her. Finally, when they were only a few yards away from each other they both leapt into the air and curled up into a large ball, not a Morph Ball, but the kind a person becomes when they fold up their legs and arms and hold them close to the body. This created a yellowish sparking field around both of them…the Screw Attack.

Both slammed into each other high in the air, fell to the ground and did it again. They repeated this for about three more times before Samus slammed the SA-X in the midsection with her Arm Cannon. From there it turned into a hand-to-hand fight. The other Smashers were reluctant to join in as both Samus and the SA-X were moving very fast, and they weren't sure which was which.

Eventually one of the combatants was knocked to the ground.

"Samus?" Falco ventured, unsure which one was standing.

"DIE!" The standing Samus said, kicking the other one in the helmet as she charged up her…Power Beam.

"All right! Everyone, lock your weapons on the one on the ground!" Bario said.

The SA-X tried to get up, but an energy ball from Meta's sword knocked it back down. It looked right at Samus, as she pointed her fully charged Power Beam at the SA-X.

"Goodbye, bi-"

The rest of what Samus said was cut off by the sound of her firing her Power Beam. The shot slammed directly into the SA-X, and carried it up, off the ground and straight into a wall, where it fell to the floor and lay there, twitching.

"Is it dead?" Raichu asked, as Mario flamed up the frozen Diddy.

"I don't think so…" Samus said, keeping her weapon trained on the SA-X.

The ice around Diddy melted reasonably quickly, and he was reasonably upset to discover that he was frozen.

"That sucks! I can't believe that thing froze me!"

That thing decided to take this moment as an opportunity to start growing.

"I was afraid of this," Samus said, backing away.

It was becoming some kind of massive monster. The orange armor was becoming orange skin, although it was as thick as any armor, and it sprouted many greenish eyes and a long red tongue from its large fanged mouth. Its legs and arms thickened and lengthened until at the end of it, this new, monstrous SA-X stood about twelve feet high.

It let out a high pitched screech and then jumped into the air, quickly vanishing because the limited light did not illuminate much near the ceiling, as the electric ball was gone, and the small fires on the wall were getting smaller.

"Everybody, move! It's going to come down FAST-" Samus said, before it came crashing down near Mario and Diddy.

Diddy was sent flying thanks to the force of the impact, but Mario managed to smash the thing in the leg with his hammer. It screeched again, this time in pain, and then punched him so hard he was sent skidding into Kirby.

Before it jumped in the air again, a missile, an arrow and an energy ball hit it from all three sides, as Samus, Link and Meta tried to keep it occupied. It screeched and then jumped over to Samus, who it tried to squish, but she managed to avoid it by rolling away.

Catching on to the plan, Raichu started shooting electricity at the thing. Its armor protected it from most of the attacks, but it was obviously taking some damage. It tried to jump over to Link and kick him, but he blocked it with his shield. The force of the blow knocked him down, but at least he was unharmed.

The SA-X turned to jump over to Meta who was flying towards the SA-X, but Link leapt up and stabbed it in the leg. It squealed and tried to hit him, but a sword slash to the face from Meta halted that. Then Bario ran over, leapt in the air and made two deep slashing cuts down the front of the creature.

It spun around, knocking all three sword fighters away, but before it could leap, Samus shot it dead in the face with another fully charged Power Beam blast. The creature let out one final scream, before crumpling to the ground.

"Is it dead?" Link asked, keeping his distance.

The crumpled body of the SA-X formed together into a large floating spiky transparent sphere. It was about six feet in diameter and was vaguely blue. On the inside of the ball was a bright blue…organism, which twisted and pulsated.

"I really wish people would stop asking that." Samus sighed.

"What is this?!" Falco asked.

"This is its true form, the Core-X. It can only be damaged when its "eye" is open, but this one will try and hit us with the Ice Beam, so watch out!" Samus said rolling away from the Core-X as it moved slowly at the Smashers.

"Eye? What eye?" Diddy asked, as the creature turned to face him.  
A small eye-like protrusion appeared on the creature and it started to glow blue around that area.

"Oh. That eye."

Diddy tried to run, but he wasn't going to be fast enough to avoid the shot…so Meta flew forward and slashed at the eye. The Core-X grunted, shot out an Ice Beam blast and closed its eye. Meta was frozen solid.

"Uh…it also shoots one out when you hit the eye," Samus said.

"Thanks for the info!" Bario said with a touch of sarcasm, as the Core-X turned to him.

It started charging its Ice Beam again. Deciding to try ranged combat, Bario flung both of his swords at the eye. They both hit, almost exactly in the same spot and as the Ice Beam blast shot out of the injured creature, Bario dashed to the side and avoided it.

As the Core- X turned to Mario, the swords dropped, and seizing the opportunity Bario grabbed them and ran to Diddy and Raichu, who with Falco, Kirby and Link, were pelting the creature with ranged attacks. The thick armor caused it to take little damage, but at least they were doing something.

The creature prepared to fire, but Mario hit it with three fireballs before jumping out of the way of the retaliatory strike. Nearing death, it turned to Samus…who slammed it in the eye with a missile.

The outer shell of the creature shattered into pink dust, giving everyone a complete healing, and removing Meta from his icy prison, leaving only the blue inner mass. Samus started, and then slowly, walked towards it.

"Samus? What are you doing?!" Link demanded, getting worried as she drew closer to the thing.

"I just want to see if this works," she said.

"If WHAT works?" Falco asked.

"This," she said and walked into what was left of the SA-X.

Immediately it was absorbed into her body. After a bright flash, she slowly raised her Arm Cannon.

"What just happened?" Raichu asked.

Samus suddenly shot an Ice Beam blast from her Arm Cannon.

"Cool. It worked. I absorbed the Ice Beam from that X, so now I can use both the Power AND Ice Beams now!" Samus said with an edge of excitement.

A glowing blue door appeared on the wall opposite the Smashers.

"And I assume that is the way out?" Bario asked.

"I guess so," Samus said.

The Smashers started to walk towards it, when Diddy ran up to Bario.

"Hey! Bario! Did you finish with my Orange Grenade thing?"

"What? Oh…yeah! I got that done during the maze…here," Bario said, handing Diddy his Ammo clip, which was now mystically granted to produce powerful Orange Grenades.

"Awesome!" Diddy said, taking it and wrapping it around his waist.

"The Grenades are so volatile however, that it is only able to produce them one at a time, and not continuously. It CAN make infinite, but it's no where near as fast as the peanuts, so use them wisely," Bario said.

Diddy nodded, and said his thanks, as Samus shot a Power Beam blast at the door. It was a hexagonal door, and it opened by each of the six triangles it was formed from sliding up into the doorway. The Smashers all walked into the next room, and prepared for their next challenge…


	21. Metroids What more needs to be said?

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Twenty-One: Metroids. What more needs to be said?**

The Smashers entered the next area, only to come face-to-face with a small compact room…compared to previous ones. It was only about ten feet total in length and width, and height was maybe eight. As soon as they all came in the door closed behind them, and the room started to move…downwards.

"What?" Diddy asked, adjusting his ammo belt.

"It's some kind of elevator," Samus said.

"Before we reach the next place and our next fight…perhaps you could give us some advice on what we may potentially be encountering?" Bario asked, looking at Samus.

"Well, I'm honestly not sure what to expect, so I guess I'll give you a run-through of something we'll probably face…Metroids."

"Metroids? I've heard of those…they're like jellyfish things?" Falco asked, as the elevator started to slow down.

Samus stared at him for a second, before clearing her throat and continuing.

"Uh…kind of. In their larval state Metroids look vaguely like floating jellyfish, with a bluish-white membrane and some nucleus visible…but instead of tentacles they have small fang-like things, which they use to latch onto your head…and suck the life-force out of you."

"They do what?" Diddy asked, in shock.

"Right. They suck it out of you, causing them to grow larger and eventually you'll die. They're also resistant to most attacks, but they can be damaged…but their true weakness is ice. They can be frozen easily, and then destroyed with a single well-placed blow."  
Listening to Samus talk, the Smashers neither noticed nor cared that the elevator had stopped.

"When the Metroids mature, they go through several stages. The first is the Alpha Metroid Stage. In this one they are about-"

Before she could continue, the door opened.

"I think we better get going, if we don't…well who knows what could happen…sorry that you didn't finish Samus." Bario said.

"It's not about me…I was saying that for your own sake." Samus said, as she stepped into a gloomily lit room, similar to the other room, where they fought the SA-X, only without the maze.

It was better lit, and as they stepped in, glowing panels on the ceiling lit up the gray, rocky, but mostly smooth room even further. It was much smaller then the other rooms, only about twenty feet long, but about the same in height and width as the other rooms. At the far end there was only a blank wall and no apparent door…and in between them and the wall were…

"Metroids," Samus said, aiming her cannon at the floating creatures.

They were ten of the alien jelly-fish things…and upon seeing the new prey they let out a high pitched squeal, as the door behind the Smashers slammed shut and closed down, becoming a light gray, almost indistinguishable from the wall.

"Attack before they get too close!" Bario yelled, pointing his swords at the Metroids.  
The Smashers didn't have a lot of time. The room was only twenty feet long, and the Metroids were fast. Even so, Samus managed to freeze one, and then shatter it with a missile. Link hit one with an arrow, and even though the shaft penetrated the creatures' membrane, it didn't get too far in. Before it could reach them, several peanuts and energy balls from Meta and Diddy respectively hit the creature and killed it. It fell to the ground and disintegrated.

Mario, Raichu both sent their elemental balls at a creature Kirby was hitting with his shockwaves. Well before the Metroid reached them, it too fell and died.

Unfortunately for the Smashers, this only eliminated three of the ten Metroids, leaving a sizable seven left…and now they could reach their victims…

Falco backed up, shooting continuously at a Metroid that was floating closer to him, in strange erratic motions, causing him to miss most of the time. The shots that did hit seemed to cause little damage. As the Metroid got closer, he was filled with an unnatural dread, as Samus's words flashed though his mind again…

"Sucks the life force…sucks the life force…sucks the life force…SUCKS…THE…LIFE…FORCE…"

Falco let out a strangled yell and raised his wing-like arms up to protect his face as the creature made its last charge…and was cut in half by Link's sword.

"Falco, man, calm down!" Link said, with a good-natured grin.

Before Falco could vocalize his thanks another Metroid swooped behind Link…and clamped its fangs down on his hooded head.

"Gumf!" Link, said, making more muffled grunting noises as the Metroid moved its fangs up and down eagerly…and something seemed to be traveling from Link to the Metroid.

Link's grunts were becoming fainter…he fell to his knees…his attempts to remove the creature were weakening. Falco pummeled the Metroid with his feet and arms, but it just seemed to be getting bigger as it drained SOMETHING out of Link…he was running out of time…

"Mario, behind you! Samus, next to Kirby!" Bario yelled, directing the Smashers against the Metroids, as he swept his light purple eyes over the constrained battlefield…and spotted Link close to death…

Link was barely moving now, and Falco was close to tears, as he watched someone dying in front of him and was helpless to stop it…but then Bario's right-hand sword skewered the Metroid through its middle, penetrating all the way through. The Metroid screeched, and disintegrated, leaving a gasping Link lying on the ground.

"Link! Are you okay?" Bario asked.

Link gasped a yes, and Falco helped him up to a kneeling position.

"Watch him," Bario told Falco, as he moved back to join with the others, only to find them around him. The Metroids were finished.

"This was surprisingly simple," Diddy started to say, before he was cut off by Samus.

"I wouldn't say it's over…the door hasn't appeared yet," she said, looking at the opposite wall…which chose at that moment to collapse into dust, revealing another twenty feet of the room…and in that new section stood, or more accurately floated, seven…

"Alpha Metroids," Samus said, as the others leveled their weapons.

This second stage in the Metroid life cycle was completely different looking. The creature's soft membrane, well, relatively soft, was only visible on the underside of these five-foot high beings. The rest of it was covered in a dark green armor. Additionally it had red compound eyes, and its fangs had become long, but useless legs and some horns on its front. They floated like the younger Metroids, but they appeared to be considerably more menacing.

"Alright…these guys can't suck your life force…but they can ram you, so watch for that!" Samus said, firing a missile at one as they flew towards the Smashers.

The Alpha Metroids were more streamlined then regular Metroids…they had more pointed bodies, that despite their large size they were faster and more accurate in their flight…but they lacked agility, and they could not turn easily…a weakness that the Smashers could hopefully exploit…

However the Smashers soon noticed an advantage these Alpha Metroids had…Samus's missile exploded in the creature's face, but although it looked hurt it just shot forward, covering the distance very fast…and the other six flew at the Smashers as well.

They responded with fireballs, electric balls, peanuts, arrows, energy balls, laser shots and Ice Beams. The sheer weight of the assault managed to kill two before they reached the Smashers, and Samus froze a third, shattering it with a missile. The remaining four each slammed into a Smasher.

One hit Kirby, another crashed into Mario, a third hit Diddy, and the last one hit Samus.

Kirby was sent rolling as the Alpha Metroid turned around to make another attack. However, just before it hit him, Kirby turned into a rock, causing the creature to slam into his unmoving body and crash into the ground, screeching. As it struggled to get up, Kirby suddenly…almost turned back into himself.

When Kirby uses his power to turn into a rock, he basically looks like a vaguely square hunk of brown rock, with tightly closed eyes on its front. But now, although Kirby kept his spherical shape, with arms and legs, he looked to be covered in the brown rock, considerably increasing his mass…and apparently his strength as he punched the Alpha Metroid before it could get up.

It lay on the ground, croaking, and Kirby slowly walked towards it, shaking parts of the floor with his dense weight. This form may increase his strength and durability…but he really is as slow as a…well, a rock. When Kirby reached the Alpha Metroid he abruptly seemed to explode, sending rocks everywhere, and most hit the Metroid, killing it. When the rocks cleared, Kirby was revealed to be his normal pink self. Most of the Smashers were occupied fighting the other Alpha Metroids…but Meta was flying not to far away, just staring at Kirby with a piercing glare, that was all the more intimidating because of his lack of speech. Kirby raised an eye as Meta cleared his throat.

"ROCKS GO BOOM!" He shouted before flying around in circles. Kirby shrugged and started heading towards Diddy, who was having difficulty with his foe.

Raichu and Falco were both helping Diddy, who was trying to avoid the creature's ramming assaults. Raichu appeared to be the only one actually damaging it, as his increasingly powerful electric attacks were hitting the creature's entire body, but Diddy didn't have the strength necessary to penetrate the Alpha Metroid's armor, and Falco was unwilling to use one of his more powerful moves around the others, afraid they may get caught in the attack.

Eventually Diddy got sick of the game of catch, so before Kirby reached them he activated his jet-pack and flew straight up. The Alpha Metroid followed, getting pelted from beneath with laser shots and electric attacks…but it seemed to not notice or care. Diddy flew about thirty feet up, with the Alpha Metroid only a short distance behind. When Diddy reached the apex of his jet-pack's height he dropped an Orange Grenade right on top of the creature, and dropped straight down, missing the Alpha Metroid by inches.

The Grenade exploded when Diddy was about halfway down, immediately killing the Alpha Metroid, and just about then he realized he was about to have a rather rough landing. Before he could do anything, he bounced off of the top of a pink puffball and landed harmlessly on the ground, while the puffball in question seemed irritated about being used as a cushion.

Mario was skillfully dodging the Alpha Metroid that was trying to attack him and Bario, while pelting it with fireballs. Bario rolled under the creature and stabbed it in the soft membrane as it flew over him. It squealed and as it turned around, a hammer swing from Mario slammed it hard into the ground, where it quickly died.

A mostly recovered Link threw a bomb at the Alpha Metroid that just flew at Samus, both missing with their attacks. The bomb exploded, hurting it, and causing it to turn its attention to Link…which allowed Samus to freeze it with an Ice Beam, and shatter it with a missile, finishing off the Alpha Metroids.

The Smashers slowly walked to the second wall that had been revealed after the first one collapsed.

"I don't think it's over yet," Bario said.

The others nodded and trained their weapons on the wall when they were about twenty feet away…and startlingly fast it collapsed into dust, revealing another twenty foot section of the room, and five new enemies…

"Gamma Metroids!" Samus yelled, as she and the others immediately started firing at the charging creatures.

The Gamma Metroids were very similar looking to the Alpha Metroids, they had longer legs, and were larger all around with longer pointed horns on its front, but otherwise appeared unchanged…however, these ones could do a bit more than just fly around…

The Smashers immediately opened up with their barrage of projectiles, Samus taking out one with her classic Ice Beam and Missile combo, although it took two of each to kill the Gamma Metroid, and the rest managed to take out one more of this obviously more powerful creatures. The last three each managed to hit a Smasher, as they were faster than they seemed possible for their large size, Falco, Bario and Link were sent rolling, as they managed to avoid the brunt of the attack. As the Gamma Metroids came back, they unleashed their new attack…

A Gamma Metroid flew over to Falco, who flipped onto his feet, firing away. The creature ignored the attacks…and sent a jolt of electricity at him. The yellowish chain covered the few feet between them rapidly, and soon Falco was lying on the ground twitching violently as the paralyzing shock traveled through his feathered body.

The other Gamma Metroids were not having such an easy time. Bario managed to avoid the attack, and he responded with two powerful sword strikes, that cut large furrows in the creature's armor. Mario assisted by jumping on the creature, hitting it with a hammer swing and leaping off before it could hit him with its shock attack. Meta soon joined in on this fight, while Kirby dashed over to help Link and Samus.

Samus was trying to maneuver around the Gamma Metroid so she could hit it, but Link was too close for her to get a safe shot. Link kept trying to shove the Gamma Metroid back with his shield, but although the shield protected him from the beings shock attacks, its superior size and strength was inexorably pushing him back…until Kirby slammed it into the ground with his hammer.

Falco was struggling to move, and he was gradually regaining his mobility…but the Gamma Metroid fired another shock at him…which Raichu jumped in front of, easily absorbing it. The Gamma Metroid was startled by this, and as it tried to figure out what to do, Diddy started pelting it with peanuts, drawing its attention. Raichu took a moment to look at Falco who appeared to be mostly improved.

"You okay?" Raichu asked.

Falco nodded, then flashed Raichu a grin…well at least it looked like a grin…it was hard to tell with that large beak of his.

"Don't worry…I'll take care of this…I'm REALLY getting sick of these Metroids!"

The Gamma Metroid battling Bario, Mario and Meta soon fell. It barely managed to scratch Bario, and the other two suffered no damage. A strike from Meta's sword to its underbelly soon finished it off.

Samus froze the inert Gamma Metroid that Kirby damaged, but before she could blow it up, Link made a hand motion to her, one that indicated that she should wait. She obliged, and Link shattered it with a downwards sword thrust.

Falco ran over to the Gamma Metroid trying to hit Diddy and rolled under it. Before it realized he was there, Falco activated a move he has not used for a while, the Fire Falco, which wreathed him in a flaming shield of orange, yellow and red. Letting out a loud shout he shot straight up, penetrating the creature and flying upwards a few more feet, before the flames dissipated, and he landed gracefully in the rapidly vanishing dust pile of the Gamma Metroid.

Before the Smashers could take a breather, the next wall ALSO collapsed, extending the room by another twenty feet, and revealing three Zeta Metroids.

They stood over six feet tall, and were no longer floating. They had become reptilian creatures…like Outer Space Raptors or something. They had long tails, dark green armor, and a leech-like mouth. Rounding out the beasts were large clawed arms. With claws.

"FIRE!" Bario said as the Zeta Metroids started jumping, covering incredible distances with their long muscular legs.

The Smashers responded with their normal stream of projectile attacks, but the Zeta Metroids were moving too fast and unpredictably to be hit easily.

"How much longer is this going to go on?! I'm sick of fighting Metroids!" Falco said again, ducking a fireball flung at him from a Zeta.

"You're sick of fighting them?! What about ME?!" Samus asked, charging up her Ice Beam.

"Yeah, well, at least I didn't name them after my sorority!" Falco said.

"Your what?!" Bario asked, slashing at a Zeta that jumped away just before he hit it.

"Do you even know what a sorority is?" Samus said, hitting a Zeta with a fully charged Ice Beam, which was about five times as powerful as a single uncharged one. She then shattered it with three missiles.

"Uh…yes...maybe…NO!" Falco yelled, using the Falco Phantasm to avoid a Zeta that jumped past him, shooting fireballs from its mouth.

Kirby, Meta and Mario were trying to take down a Zeta Metroid, that was using jets of air to float over their heads, shooting fireballs…that were matched by Mario's and all of the fireballs dissipated harmlessly.. Before it could escape, Kirby, using puffs of air to get up to its level slammed it with a hammer, right into Mario's hammer, which flung it through Meta's sword killing the Zeta Metroid.

The final Zeta Metroid was having difficulty hitting Link. It tried a few fireballs, but that was ineffective as he rolled out of the way. It then tried to claw at him, but he blocked that with his shield. Before he could retaliate, a stream of electricity hit the creature, pinning it down with pain long enough for Diddy to kill it with an orange grenade.

"Wow. We're getting good." Diddy said.

"Well, it doesn't matter how good we are. If I'm right, next up will be Omega Metroids…" Samus said, as the wall started to collapse.

"What do you mean it doesn't matter how good we are? If we're so good that we can kill everything, than we could kill everything with one hit! Even…omg…Metroids! Whatever the kittens those are supposed to be." Falco said.

"Just…shut up," Samus said.

As the wall collapsed, it revealed even more of the room…about fifty feet, making this perhaps one of the larger rooms the Smashers have been to. And inside were two Omega Metroids…and something else.

The Omega Metroids looked like larger, more intimidating Zeta Metroids, they stood over twelve feet tall, were considerably longer, and had large carnivorous looking mouths. Like the other Metroids with Greek names, (And no there is no discernible reason why an aliens life cycle's stages are described through Greek letters, when logically they come from space, and oh…forget it.) they had thick dark green armor, but they were very large and muscular, with massive clawed arms and legs, and glowing red eye…things.

But it was the creature behind these two massive brutes that drew attention. This was the Metroid Queen, which stood only a few shorter than the Omega's…but that was because she was on four legs. Her head was huge, and was almost entirely pointy, toothy, mouth. She actually resembled a demented turtle…that was twenty-five feet long and with large claws, and big pointy teeth. And were the teeth mentioned? They were pointy.

The Smashers just stared at the three humungous beasts for a while, before the Omega Metroids let out a loud roar and started stomping forward. Samus immediately snapped out of her shock, after all she's beaten these things before…but the mere fact they existed was beyond her. She couldn't understand how these Metroids were back, after she killed all of them…but that was something to worry about later. For now, they needed to survive.

"Guys!" she yelled, drawing the Smashers attention…they had about eighty feet before the Omega's reached them, what with their constant moving during combat, "Aim for the Omega Metroid's chest, they're vulnerable there!"

Immediately the Smashers took aim, and the ones with weapons that could reach that far started firing, Samus and…Falco. Link took aim, but his arrows were inaccurate over forty or fifty feet.

As soon as Samus fired, her Ice Beam rapidly covered the distance. The large bowling ball sized chunk of ice flew forward and slammed into the chest of the Omega on the right, causing it to stop and pant for a second with its massive head facing the ground as the wisps of steam from the ice ball wafted past its face, but then its head whipped up with amazing speed, and it launched a fireball, just as big as the ice ball, right at Samus, who was hit full on and fell to the ground, unmoving and without a sound.

"Samus!" Link yelled, looking at her body in shock, before glaring at the Omega and firing arrow after arrow. Most missed, and others bounced off its armor, but a rare few penetrated and caused it even more hurt…and it started to move.

Using its massive legs, it started to jump, and then, activating pockets of air, it levitated, just like the Zeta Metroid did, and moved incredibly fast, covering the distance in no time. Meanwhile, the Omega Metroid Falco was trying to hit, ignored his attacks, and started shooting fireballs long distance.

The floating Omega crashed into the ground by Link with a thump that knocked him off his feet. He rolled to the left, as it stomped down; trying to squish him, and Link retaliated by slashing at it. His sword bounced off its armored leg, and Link had to stagger to his knees, and do a sort of crawling leap to avoid its second attack, landing by Samus's still form.

Raichu, Diddy and Kirby avoided the not incredibly fast moving fire-balls, and the three of them with Falco and Mario ran towards the attacking Omega Metroid. Bario and Meta, seeing Link struggling, and Samus apparently out of the fight decided to go help them. Well at least Bario decided. Meta was beyond…or possibly beneath decision making abilities.

The Omega that Falco and the rest were moving towards leapt forward, covering the ground between them in an instant. Mario was the only able to react in time; he leapt to the side of the creature, as it let out a ferocious flurry of claw swipes, with hands as big as Diddy. The rest of the Smashers were fast enough to avoid the majority of the attacks, but they all still got cut up pretty bad, and it looked like the Omega wasn't going to stop…until Mario hammered it in the chest, after rolling underneath its arms while it was trying to kill the others.

The Omega Mario hammered, immediately stopped attacking, shrieked and backed up a bit. Taking advantage of its momentary weakness Raichu, Kirby, Falco and Diddy hit it with electricity, laser shots, shockwaves and peanuts. The Omega backed up even more, waving its arms, before lowering them in front of its vulnerable chest and stomping forward again. Raichu backed off a bit and started crackling with electricity. Diddy glanced at him, but decided to focus on the enemy instead.

Link clambered to his feet and stared at the Omega, sword and shield raised, preparing to face the inevitable attack. It reared its head back, charging a fireball…and Meta and Bario unleashed a triple sword slash on its exposed chest. It squealed, shooting the fireball into the ceiling, and retaliated by slashing Meta into the ground. It tried to do the same to Bario, but he managed to hold it back with his swords.

"Claws make the world go HURT!" Meta shrieked, flapping around in circles on the ground, as Bario and the Omega pushed at each other, with Bario clearly losing.

Link then leapt forward and struck the Omega with a Jumping Attack. It responded faster than he could have thought, and he barely got his shield up in time to stop the claw swipe. The Omega pushed hard, and Link was forced to hold onto the shield with both hands, his sword sticking up uselessly in his left hand as it pushed the center of the shield. Even with both Bario and Link struggling, the vastly more physically powerful Omega was pushing them down…

The Omega Falco and the others were battling was getting closer, until Mario leapt onto its head and hammered it…hard. It squealed and jerked its head back, knocking Mario off…and raising its arms. Immediately Diddy launched a grenade at it, which exploded an instant later. Kirby instantly followed that up with a hammer to its chest, before running out of the way. Before the Omega could react, Falco used a Fire Falco on its chest, slamming squarely there, before dropping to the ground and used a Falco Phantasm to get out of the way of Raichu.

Raichu slammed into the Omega's chest head first and unleashed a massive torrent of electricity. Finally being unable to take anymore, and fried from the inside out, it let out one last shriek before disintegrating.

Link and Bario looked at each other, both straining hard.

"On three, we'll let go and try and hit it again, kay?" Bario asked.

"Fine…by me," Link said, just the faintest hint of anger in his voice.  
Bario frowned slightly, but before he could respond, a fully charged Ice Beam hit the Omega in the chest. It shrieked and backed away, knocking over both Bario and Link as they were pushing so hard, they fell off balance. Samus immediately followed the Ice Beam with three missiles. The Omega stopped, frozen with pain, allowing Meta to spring forward and skewer it in the chest, with a loud shout of kittens. Following the path of the first Omega, the second disintegrated as well.

Link turned to Samus, shock evident in his eyes, as Bario got up.

"What, did you think I was actually hurt or something? The fireball just knocked some of my suits systems out for a bit," she said with a bit of a grin in her voice.

Bario offered his hand to Link, to help him up, but Link grunted and shoved it away, getting up on his own. An understanding look flashed through Bario's dark eyes, but it was gone before anyone else saw it.

The Queen Metroid decided to take this as an opportunity to charge forward. Her massive feet shook the room, and drew all eyes towards her.

"F-Kittens!" Samus yelled, "Shoot her! Everyone! SHOOT HER!"  
"F-what?" Falco yelled back.

"Shut up and shoot her before she kills you!" she screamed.

The Smashers focused everything they had on her, fireballs, laser shots, electric balls, arrows, shockwaves, Ice Beams, energy balls, peanuts, and she actually staggered under the sheer weight of the attacks, but her thick armor protected her from essentially any damage. Her only weak point was her belly…and since she was so low to the ground that would be practically impossible to hit.

When she was still a good distance from Falco, Mario, Kirby, Raichu and Diddy, the Queen roared and extended her neck an incredible distance, whipping the armored extension into all five of them, knocking the surprised Smashers to the ground, where they crawled away from her snapping jaws. She roared again and gave a short hop, surprising Falco, who was unable to pull his leg away in time.

Her jaws closed on it and squeezed with a sickening crunch.

"EEEEEEEYAAAAAAGH!" Falco screamed, in sheer agony.

The Queen raised her head high, and as Mario came leaping from behind, she whipped him with her tail, sending him into other would-be rescuers, Kirby and Diddy. Raichu tried to shock the Queen, but her armor seemed mostly impervious. Link, Samus, Bario and Meta ran towards her

The Queen shook Falco around, holding him up almost twenty feet in the air, before tossing him down to the ground with a casual strength, where he lay, motionless and with his leg crushed and bleeding. His eyes were closed, and if he was breathing, it wasn't going to last much longer.

Samus looked at the situation, and it didn't take her long to realize what to do. The Queen was enormously powerful, not to mention enormous, and they all were exhausted after the continuous swarm of Metroids, as was probably the plan by those stupid hands. She reached her decision…

"NO! Falco!" Bario yelled, running towards him, cursing Link pulled out a bomb and threw it at the Queens face, along with several energy balls, courtesy of Meta. Hissing the Queen turned towards them, ignoring Falco.

Bario put his hands over Falco's leg, and a light purple light emanated from them.

"What…are you doing?" Falco asked.

"You're still conscious?!" Bario said, "I'm amazed. I'm using my limited magic to try and keep your wounds from getting worse. It doesn't look good…your lower leg bone is fractured in multiple places, and several of your ribs are broken. I'm actually surprised it isn't worse."  
"I can take long falls. How can you tell all that?"

"Magic," Bario said simply.

"Link!" Samus called.

"What?!" he said, evading her head.

"Hope this works," she said faintly, before rolling up into a ball.

"What…oh…SAMUS! NO!" he yelled, before she rolled right into the Queen's open mouth, vanishing in the massive creature.

"What? What did she just do?" Bario asked, looking up from Falco.

"She…roll…inside…DEAD!" Link cried, pulling out his sword and running head-on at the Queen.  
The Queen roared, and lunged her head forward, knocking Link to the ground. Diddy and the rest were surrounding the Queen, but they really didn't know what to do. She seemed unstoppable, and had already taken out Falco, and Samus…or had she?  
The Queen gave a confused grunt, before freezing in place. She seemed to quiver a bit, as though something was trying to escape and couldn't. She let out a cry of intense pain…and exploded from the inside out…her parts vanished into pink dust that healed everyone…yes, even Falco, amazingly enough.  
When the dust cleared, Samus was revealed, unrolling from her ball form.

"What? How?" Link said.

"Power Bomb. Doesn't hurt me when I'm in my Morph Ball form. I've done something like that before," She said, quite cheerful considering she was just eaten by alien royalty.

A blue glowing door lit up where the Queen once stood. The Smashers looked like they wanted to say something to each other, but with the exception of a grateful thanks of Falco to Bario, and a few knowing looks, they seemed to understand each other enough to head to the door, which Samus shot open.  
But all was not entirely good, for Bario caught a glimpse of the suspicion and distrust that Link's glare shot at him…but chose not to comment on it. Not yet at least…


	22. Things, without wings, the ING!

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Twenty-Two: Those things…have no wings, so perhaps they can not sing, because they are ING!**

Finding themselves in another slowly moving elevator…a slowly moving downwards elevator, the Smashers talk…they talk about something they should have discussed long ago. Interestingly enough, the normally taciturn Samus, who had become more and more outgoing, started the conversation.

"I just don't understand. The SA-X I can almost understand being back, what with the possibility of one escaping, but the Metroid Queen was one of a kind, and I killed not only her, but all Metroids…period. Well, except for one…but I just can't understand how they're back."  
Link looked at her, with a raised eyebrow.

"Well Samus, they're not the only enemies back. Most of the ones we fought in Hyrule were either killed by me, or one of my ancestors. I honestly am quite unsure how they came back…Ganondorf is strong, but I can't imagine him being powerful enough to make all of them obey him at once."

Bario looked around at everyone, as they all muttered and nodded. As the elevator neared the bottom, he began to speak.

"Well isn't it obvious?" he asked, slightly confused that no one knew.

"Isn't WHAT obvious?" Link snapped.

Bario looked taken aback at his tone, but recovered quickly.

"Its obvious to me that there is a third party involved here, and I think we've seen enough evidence to know that it is Master and Crazy Hand. Seemingly they are recruiting these villains, and I would guess they are trying to create an army of some sort, although they are trying to kill us first. I guess that the villains aren't very good at working together, or perhaps the Hands haven't had enough time to organize them. Either way, it would explain why we only fight small groups at a time, although the first reason would explain these "arenas" we have to keep going through, since they arrange themselves by seniority or power, and want to weaken us up before they fight us."

The Smashers stared at Bario for a minute, processing what he said, before Samus broke the silence.

"I agree. I'm not sure if that's exactly what's happening…but I'll bet its close. I do want to know where the other people from the Smash Tournaments are though…

"I'm not sure. As we know, Peach and Luigi left on some kind of mission, Yoshi…well, we know what happened to him," Bario said.

"Yeah, and good riddance," Falco muttered, before being stomped…HARD on his foot by Diddy.

"Show some respect!"  
"Ow!"  
"But so far, the only person we KNOW is missing is…Zelda, and Ganondorf may have taken her. The rest just may be at their respective homes. I see no reason to worry…at least not yet.

Link didn't look happy at having Zelda missing not be a cause to worry, but before that could be addressed, the elevator came to a stop, and the door opened. With one last glance at each other, the Smashers steeled themselves, and readied their weapons.

Entering the room at first, they didn't see anything. They assumed it was because the room was darker than the elevator; it was taking time for their eyes to adjust. However, after thirty seconds, with the darkness staying just as dark…they realized that the room itself was completely black. They also slowly began to realize that there was something else there. Something big…

As the Smashers were thinking about reentering the, if not well-lit, the at least LIT elevator, the door closed, and even that limited light vanished…and that's when the freezing burning sensation hit.  
It took them all a moment to realize it, but once they did, they couldn't stop. It was painful, but slight…but once they noticed it, it seemed to grow in strength, and soon most of them were on their knees…except for Samus, who had dealt with this pain before.

"What…going…ow…" Falco said.

Samus noticed a glowing white object slightly to their left, and fired a Power Beam at it. Immediately the area lit up as a bubble of light emanated from what appeared to be some kind of glowing crystal that Samus hit. Immediately the burning freezing sensation vanished, and in fact, they were gradually feeling stronger in this small bubble.

Samus looked around, and shot more of the Light Crystals…slowly revealing the massive chamber, and the SOMETHING in the middle, when she looked up…and fired a Charge Shot right at something on the ceiling. Immediately the entire room was lit up, and the Smashers gasped and took a step back, except for Samus.

"I knew it," she said, as she aimed at the thing in front of them

It was large, and looked to have two distinct parts. The bottom part was thick and blackish, reaching up for about ten-fifteen feet, and the second part, which was about the same size, if not slightly thicker had a dark red circular mark on it, which looked almost like an eye. Sticking out of the top part were four long, thick barbed tentacles. The whole thing was either black, or a very dark color…and it just oozed malice.

"This…_Thing_...is Emperor Ing," Samus explained as the others readied their weapons, "Get ready for a tough battle…"

Emperor Ing let out a frighteningly loud roar, but rather then him attacking, several small dark puddles formed around him. They coalesced to form eleven black creatures that looked like balls on top of short stalks that were about two-three feet tall.

"Inglets!" Samus said, firing Power Beam shots at them.

It didn't take many shots to kill them, and taking the hint the other Smashers started firing too, killing all of them…or so they thought. After firing and killing most of the seemingly defenseless Inglets…more black puddles began to form into them.

"That's…not good," Samus said.

"Agreement," Bario said.

The new Inglets quivered…and started firing black balls at the Smashers. The balls were small, but painful, and they rapidly started spreading out around the arena, continuing to fire at the Inglets…only to have more appear.

"This isn't working!" Diddy yelled.

"Gee, you think!" Falco responded.

"Focus on the Emperor! Hit the tentacles!" Samus yelled, firing several missiles at the tentacles.

The missiles connected, and the tentacles flashed for a second, before whipping around like crazy, extending and retracting, and soon all of the Smashers were hugging the walls to avoid the tentacles…which kept them still long enough for the Inglets to start pelting them.  
Link and Mario, who were standing near each other, killed the nearby Inglets, and then started firing fireballs and arrows at the tentacles. The four tentacles pulled themselves high into the air, and clung to each other. A large glowing mass appeared between the tentacles.

"I'm going to take that as a hint…to RUN!" Raichu yelled, as all of the Smashers broke away from the walls and dashed away from the tentacles…just as they unleashed a massive black ball that slammed into the ground where Link and Mario were standing, with enough force to shake the entire chamber.

Link realized that this beast was going to take some extra stopping power, so he pulled out his Bow, and notched one of his seemingly infinite supply of arrows, (They're not infinite, he's got fifty, but it gets restocked every pink dust thing, just like Samus only has 250 missiles…heh…_only_…that also gets restocked.) and called out to Mario.

"Hey! Do that fire thing again!"

"Okeydokey!"  
Catching on instantly, Mario shot a small fireball at the arrow, setting the specially treated metal ablaze. Link wasn't sure how it worked…he thought there was oil or something on the tip…but it didn't matter. He fired the Fire Arrow, and penetrated one of the four tentacles, briefly setting it on fire.

Emperor Ing screamed and shook it wildly, putting the fire out, before lashing at Link and Mario, who either rolled or back-flipped out of the way. Link growled, and decided to try something he hasn't done yet.

He pulled out a bomb from his refilling sack and flicked the fuse with his index finger, lighting it. He then quickly skewered the soft center of the bomb with the arrow, knowing that it was the other sections that caused it to explode. Taking careful aim, and kicking an Inglet away…he fired at the tentacle that he already had attacked.

The Bomb Arrow hit straight and true, penetrating the tentacle at the same time a fully charged shot from Samus's Power Beam hit it. Seconds later, the bomb exploded, causing Emperor Ing to let out an annoyed shriek and retract it into his main body mass.

It didn't seem like he was happy, and the light seemed to be bothering him too. It's hard to understand…but he seemed to hunch over a bit, despite him being a large mostly shapeless mass. Adding to his discomfort was the constant attacks the Smashers were leveling at his tentacles, and even though he still had three out…that wouldn't last long…

The Smashers were staying well out of the range of his tentacles, the Inglets were essentially harmless, and now, with only three tentacles, he apparently couldn't use his energy attack anymore. The fight looked like an easy win…until a patch of air near a tentacle started to shimmer, sort of like when steam hits the air, and it wavers, only more so.

The Emperor stuck a tentacle through the circular disturbance…and the tentacle vanished! It appeared, a moment later, through a second disturbance by the Smashers, managing to smack Kirby before Samus shot it, causing it to go back.

"Oh yeah…he can create mini-portals…" Samus said.

"Oh now you mention it!" Falco shouted, pelting the Emperor with laser shots.

"Give her a break!" Link said, preparing another Bomb Arrow, although those things were awkward to shoot, he figured they were the best weapon he had now...unless…no. He didn't want to use that yet…

Link fired and hit another tentacle, but that just seemed to incite the villainous monarch.

The Smashers had to speed up a bit as Emperor Ing started shoving all three of his tentacles through the mini-portals, but now that they were expecting it, Bario managed to spin around and cut one off, followed by Meta and Link each severing his weakened tentacles.

Surprised and startled by how his attack backfired, the Emperor retracted what was left his tentacles towards himself…and began to shake.

"Is he dying?" Diddy asked Samus.

"No…this fight is long from over," she said, words that did not reassure anyone.

The top half of the Emperor started to retract into the lower half, revealing what was underneath…and it was not a good thing. A large light colored circular object sat perched on the black lower stalk, and it was about as ten feet higher than that. It looked almost like an eye, with clear half-domes on either side, leaving only a small portion of the inner…thing…exposed.

Emperor Ing turned his new eye on the Smashers, and they quivered as his full malice was made clear.

"Guys…get ready to MOVE!" Samus said, dashing away from the Emperor's gaze. The others looked at her in confusion, before a red glowing light appeared in front of the eye. Their own eyes widening with realization, they followed Samus's example, diving or running out of the way.

And good thing they did, because a thick red laser blasted forth from the eye, charring the dark ground where the Smashers stood. The laser was about a foot in diameter, and amazingly enough, didn't vanish after the attack. Angry at the Smashers for avoiding his attack, the evil monarch turned his gaze, sweeping his deadly beam across the ground, dealing decent damage to Mario, Link and Kirby, the three that were slow enough to get hit by its power.

Those three were sent flying back into the walls, Kirby destroying an Inglet with his speed, the parts of their bodies that got hit, smoking. Link let out a groan of pain, while Kirby yelped…but Mario just grunted, and looked at the Emperor, with fire burning in his eyes. And that fire started to travel down to his hand, which was grasping his hammer…

The laser dimmed out and vanished shortly after, but as the Emperor turned his eye to the other Smashers, it didn't take a genius to realize he was preparing to fire again. So they struck first.

Diddy, Meta, Samus, Raichu, Falco all fired their long distance attacks at the Emperor's eye, while Bario kept the Inglets at bay. The attacks were strong, but unfortunately most of them hit the clear half-domes on either side, which deflected the attacks easily. Several did slip through, and the Emperor was looking angry…well at least as angry as a giant deformed evil alien leader can look. But while the Smashers kept up their relentless assault, he started charging his laser beam again…

Samus noticed at the last second, and called to the attacking Smashers to break off. They tried, but the laser beam came out full force, slamming hard into Samus, and then sweeping through and hitting everyone with at least a grazing blow, with the exception of Bario, who managed to dive under the attack.

The Smashers all lay on the ground groaning, with the exception of Bario, who immediately ran to Samus, and put his hand over her chest. With them only inches above her armor, a light purple light emanated from them, similar to the light he used on Falco, only this one was brighter, and actually started to spread from his hands to her.

Kirby and Link were trying to get up, just as Mario leapt high in the air, his hammerhead blazing with an orange-red fire. He landed on one of the clear half-domes and somehow managed to keep his footing on that long enough to slam his hammer down into the central mass, lighting it on fire as the flames traveled down his hammer and onto the Emperor.

The Emperor spun his head…dome…thing, so fast that Mario was sent brutally flying into a wall. The Emperor shrieked, and started to retract its upper, flaming body into itself, actually expanding slightly. Soon his entire body was completely covered by the lower dark mass, that had expanded until it was about twice its original size, and quickly hardened into a seemingly impenetrable armor. The armor did have several large protrusions, that looked like they could be shattered, and there were enough of them that they could destabilize the entire cocoon thing. The only question was…can any of them muster up the strength to do it?

Samus leapt up, almost knocking Bario away.

"Whoa! Chill!" he said.

"What?! My suit? It was way more damaged…it said…how…?" Samus said, clearly shocked.

"Don't worry about it, Samus…I just helped a little bit."  
Samus drew back, and seemed to tense up a bit, and when she next spoke, her voice was controlled, but sounded on the verge of shaking.

"I don't need your help…I would have been fine."

Bario looked hurt at the coldness, and Samus almost immediately regretted saying that. With her suit that badly damaged in a combat situation…there's only so much that it could repair. Before she could even think about apologizing, something…unfortunate happened.

There were still several Inglets moving around their Emperor, almost as if they were shielding him, but now, several, larger puddles of black shadow were oozing into the chamber from beneath their master. They quickly rose up into three-dimensional beasts…Warrior Ing.

The Warrior Ing stood about six feet tall, but their body was constantly moving, so it was difficult to determine just how big they were. But they were big. Not Emperor Ing big, but big. They had five pointed, jointed legs, that looked much more like creepy fingers then legs. The fact that the Warrior Ing body looked vaguely like a palm, reinforced the evil black hand image.

The legs and body had several small spikes at various spots, and they had a cluster of red spots near the front/top, that seemed to serve as an eye. Dangling behind them, attached to the body, was a pointy cluster of black hair…things.  
The Inglets numbered in the twenties, but these larger creatures only numbered about ten…but it was obvious that any one of them could eliminate scores of Inglets…

Samus looked around the arena. She was easily the most damaged, having taken the brunt of the attack, and the other Smashers were stumbling to their feet, in various state of combat readiness. But now, thanks to whatever Bario did, she appeared almost fully recovered.

When she spotted the giant cocoon that the Emperor had become, she stiffened and called out to the others as the Warrior Ing and Inglets gathered in front of their master.

"Okay…this is going to be bad…I need everybody capable of climbing in some way to come with me and destroy those cracks on the cocoon…everybody else, keep the Ing off us, and watch out for the poison gas."

"Poison gas?" Falco asked, a tinge of fright in his voice.

"GO!" Samus commanded, firing a stream of missiles at the Ing to make them move and then running right at the Emperor.

Catching on, most of the other Smashers unleashed projectile attacks, destroying some Ing, injuring others.

Link shot out his Hookshot, and aimed it for the Emperor. Firing the metal arrow-head shaped device, it flew out and latched onto a spot about fifteen feet up the Emperor. Clutching it tightly, the chain retracted, pulling him to that spot, where he held on to the Hookshot, and looked around for the closest crack in the cocoon.

Samus did the same, using her grappling beam to cover the remaining distance, and to avoid the Warrior Ing's slashing attacks, and the Inglets projectiles. When she reached the Emperor, she quickly rolled into a ball upon hitting him, and using the "Spider Ball" technique she held on.

What the Spider Ball does is exude a magnetic field of sorts that allow Samus to hang on to certain materials and move around. It just so happens, that the Emperor's cocoon was one of those materials.

The third and final member of the Smashers who attempted to attack the cocoon was Diddy. He used his jet pack to fly over to the cocoon, dropped, and used his nimble monkey fingers and toes to clutch onto various grooves in the cocoon. It was covered in them, making it quite easy for the monkey to maintain his grip.

While three climbers maneuvered themselves onto the Emperor, the other six Smashers fought back the Warrior Ing and the weaker Inglets. They destroyed countless Inglets, but the Warriors were sturdy, and very powerful. They had several slashing attacks, made all the more effective with their five limbs. Adding to their power was the skill to turn into a quick-moving shadow puddle, and the ability to create small portals nearby that would shoot damaging white beams at the Smashers.

Still, they were skilled fighters by now, and would have wiped them out soon enough, except for one very large problem. The Emperor was still somehow creating Inglets, and Warrior Ing, that kept the six grounded Smashers from joining Samus, Link and Diddy.

Samus rolled around the outer edge of the Emperor, planting bombs and destroying cracks, while Link carefully used his Hookshot to get to cracks, lay a bomb in a recess in it, then Hookshot away before it exploded, while Diddy did the same with his climbing and Orange Grenades.

Complicating this seemingly simple task was that when the cracked parts of the cocoon were shattered, this allowed the inner Emperor to send out tentacles and attempt to smack the climbers. Finally, the more cracks that were destroyed, the more that a poisonous purple gas was released from the bottom of the cocoon, that slowly spread around the arena, causing small, but significant damage to all the grounded Smashers.  
Fortunately, the climbers, working together, and moving fast, managed to destroy all the cracked parts of the cocoon, completely destabilizing the armor. Before any of the Smashers could respond, the Emperor let out a loud cry in his falling apart cocoon, and sent the entire thing exploding outwards, knocking Link, Samus and Diddy roughly into the ground, and hitting many of the other Smashers and Ing with chunks of cocoon. The force of the explosion also caused the poison gas to dissipate, an occurrence that was very fortunate. What the Emperor had become was not a fortunate occurrence, however.

At first glance, many of the Smashers thought that he had become a very large Warrior Ing. And, on the surface, that's what he looked like. He had the same legs, although in comparison to his body they looked thinner than the Warrior Ing's, he had the same color, and the same spikes sticking out.  
What made him very, very different was that there seemed to be a glowing energy ball in him, clearly visible due to the fact that most of his body was divided into two distinct sections, that looked like a mouth. Connecting the sections, were several thick shadow strands, which looked vaguely like teeth further reinforcing the mouth image.

Oh yeah, and then there was the size. He was big. Very big. He stood about twenty feet tall…on average, a size that was difficult to determine, because he kept bobbing up and down on his five spindly legs. He was a truly huge monstrosity.

Samus looked at an enemy she faced once before, and despite her fear at facing this mighty foe again, and the fact that arrayed against them were at least thirty regenerating Ing minions, she knew, with her companions this time, that there was no doubt they could lose.

"That's the Mutated Emperor Ing…and he's about to get his ass whupped," Samus said with a grin that wasn't visible, but could be quite clearly heard.

Unfortunately the Emperor had different plans. Letting out another large roar, the Inglets and Warrior Ing quickly formed up in front of him…as did five new Ing.  
They floated in the air, and had the appearance of a red ball with strands of shadow attached to it. They were large, but not huge.

"Hunter Ing…Crud, I don't have a good plan here," Samus said.

"That's okay. I do." Bario told her.

"What?! What is it?" Samus said, while charging up her Power Beam.

"Well, I think that as long as the Emperor survives, these Ing will keep spawning," Bario said.

"Right," Diddy said, getting his weapons ready.

"So, the little Ing are distractions. What we should be going after is the Emperor, and only focus on the minions enough to avoid damage. Samus, how do we hurt this guy?"

"He'll take some damage anywhere, but if we really want to hurt him we have to hit his central glowing ball thing. The only problem is that it's mostly impervious to certain attacks. For example, right now it's kind of orange. That means that my Power Beam, missiles, and similar attacks will hurt it, I think orange is like any solid or explosive object. Only problem is, once he's damaged enough he'll switch its weakness to light or dark, Beams that I don't have now…" Samus said, a hint of worry creeping into her voice.

Bario paused for a second, clearly thinking about something. The Ing were quivering with anticipation, but were apparently waiting for the Smashers to make the first move.

After twenty seconds, Bario smiled and called out some commands.

"Alright! I have a plan. Everyone but…Falco…and Mario, go out and attack the Emperor, destroy the Ing, just cause damage. Absolutely important though, don't attack the energy thing! DO NOT ATTACK IT AT ALL!" Bario said, with a tone of complete seriousness.

"WHAT?! Samus just told you that was his weakness? What, are you suicidal?!" Link screamed.

Bario flashed a look of irritation at Link, but was saved from speaking by Raichu.

"Link, please, we don't have a lot of time. I trust Bario, and I'm sure the_**rest**_ of us do as well. He hasn't steered us wrong yet."  
Link looked angry, but didn't seem to be willing to go against the group, as it was obvious from their expressions that they trusted the purple haired swordsman. Only Kirby had a look of suspicion, which looked strange on his large face. Samus, appeared emotionless.

"Thank you Raichu," Bario said, graciously, as the Ing started to slowly inch forward, "I want Falco and Mario to stay here…and well, protect me from attacks. I'm going to try and use some advanced magic to freeze the Emperor's energy core, so that Samus will be able to hit it. I assume Link's bombs, and Diddy's grenades will to in that form, and I hope Meta-Knight might be able to cause some damage with his sword. I think he's the only one who can get even remotely close physically to the core."  
His words caused slight gasps of surprise. None of them were aware that Bario could do that.

"I've never done anything like this before," he said, clearly nervous. Apparently Bario didn't know he could do it, "But I think it's possible. It's very advanced, and will leave me immobile, so that why I need Falco and Mario. If this works, it may clinch the fight for us, and…THE ING ARE ATTACKING!" Bario yelled.

The Ing were charging forward. Immediately the six Smashers who weren't sticking around Bario ran forward to meet them, and hopefully keep them away from their de facto leader.  
While Falco and Mario kept some of the Inglets at bay with pistol shots and fireballs, Bario closed his eyes, put his hands together…and started to glow with a faint purple light. The magic was starting…but was it going to work in time? Or at all?

The six Smashers met the swarm of Ing with a literal Smash. Link and Meta charge right for a Warrior each, stabbing right through three Inglets, and cut their foes in half. Samus body-slammed two Inglets and a Warrior, then finished off the Warrior Ing with a missile. Diddy, Kirby and Raichu each used their respective skills to kill two Warriors and five Inglets.

Don't misinterpret the situation. Ing, especially Warrior Ing are very powerful. But the Smashers, already powerful fighters before they started journeying had become steadily more skilled, and now something marvelous was happening. They were starting to work as team. The Ing didn't stand a chance. At least, not until the Hunter Ings came in.

They stayed back floating. None of the Ing was trying a possession attack, as if sensing that using it on these strong willed heroes would be worse than pointless…but the Hunter Ing didn't need that. The five Hunter Ing phased slightly out of this dimension, and with their weird crackly static-like bodies flew straight through all but one of the six, Diddy.

The ones that were hit felt extreme pain, and Raichu and Kirby almost fell over. Link and Samus recovered fast, spinning around and throwing a bomb and a missile at the attackers, right when they phased back, destroying the physically weak creatures. Meta tried to slash one, but it phased back out before he hit it.

The one that hit Kirby spun around and extended its four long tentacles to the confused Diddy. They slowly reached him…and as the Hunter phased out, went inside him, causing him large amounts of pain. He squealed, as only an injured monkey can, and Raichu tackled him out of the way of the tentacles. The Hunter Ing phased back in for a second, and that's when Kirby smashed it into Ing dust with his hammer.

Unfortunately more Ing were being spawned…and the Emperor had decided to join in the "fun".

Meanwhile, two Warrior Ing had noticed the three Smashers off to the side, and decided to investigate. Unfortunately for them, Ings usually "investigate" by attempting to kill things.  
Falco glanced nervously between Bario and the big fight. He wanted to be in it, helping out, but he knew that this guard duty was crucial. He just wished he knew why Bario picked him, and not someone more capable, like Link, or Samus.

Falco looked again at Bario. Since he started his spell, his position hadn't changed. The purple light was growing stronger, but seemed to be retracting closer inwards.

Falco cleared his throat, and looked at Mario, who was carefully scanning the room, looking for any nearby enemies.

"Hey uh…Mario," Falco started, causing Mario to turn towards him.

Mario may be a nice guy, and a great hero, but his mostly complete silence made it difficult to talk to him. Falco realized that while he may know little about the rest of the Smashers, they hadn't really had much time to chat, no one here really knew anything about Mario, besides the fact that he's risked his life for them countless times.

"Do you uh…um…I mean," Falco said, floundering, despite the fact that Mario's large, bright blue eyes merely showed polite interest, Falco felt desperate to say something…cool…to him.

While Falco usually tried to present himself as arrogant, unshakable and just plain **cool**, that persona had fallen away after he got over the fact that Fox McCloud, a companion of him, and a strong member in the Smash Tournaments, was simply…better then him. Better at flying, better at fighting, and just…a better person…er…fox. Outside of the Tournaments, Falco wasn't really used to on the ground combat, and he was very tense about it. He, being a bird, liked to fly. Unfortunately, he was a flightless species, and his Arwing, was left back at home. Besides, its not like he could use it here They were freaking underground! He was trying though, and he had shown himself to be skilled, and hoped to one day beat Fox…in something.

Back to his poorly thought out conversation.

"Uh…do you think Bario can hear us like this?" Falco finished lamely.

Before Mario could respond, he noticed the sneaking Warrior Ing and dashed forward, shooting fireballs and killing both with two strikes of his hammer. He calmly walked back.

"Yes, I can hear you," Bario said, startling Falco into jumping. Bario cracked open one eye.

"And I'm almost done."

The Emperor's new form was a far cry from his previous ones. He nimbly and astonishingly quickly, moved around the field, hitting the Smashers with his legs, and large portals that he opened up around himself, which created powerful white beams of energy. He destroyed several of his own Ing, but he seemed not to care.

The Smashers retaliated, amazed that it was this difficult to hit a target this big. He was just so FAST. They threw bombs, power beam shots, peanuts, electricity, everything. He was definitely taking damage, but since they were extremely carefully avoiding his core, not nearly enough to stop him.

Soon though, the Emperor seemed to notice the three Smashers off to the side, especially the glowing one. Suspicious, he made a few movements towards them, noting how the Smashers seemed intent on keeping him away from that area. Deciding that whatever was going on over would be bad for him, he opened up five portals, and aimed all of the white beams at Bario, sending them off like a stream of death.

Falco and Mario noticed what the Emperor did immediately. With barely a thought they leapt in front of Bario, Falco turning on his reflector, and Mario swinging his magical yellow cape right as the blasts hit. Two bounced off Mario's cape, knocking him to his knees, while three smashed into Falco's Reflector, shattering it, and causing him to fall to the ground, severely stunned from the kickback. All five blasts flew back and penetrated the same section on the Emperor's core.

Stunned by the pain for a second, and extremely surprised, the Emperor didn't move. A fact, which turned into his fatal mistake.

Bario's eyes snapped open, as the purple light formed into a glowing, floating ball in Bario's hand, about the size of a bowling ball. With a grin, he flung it at the Emperor.  
The ball hit the core and exploded outwards, spreading out onto the entire core and seemingly holding it in place with thin dark purple strings. The Emperor could move, but seemed to realize that the white beams he used had weakened him, and that he was unable to defend his most vulnerable section. He tried to bring the upper part of his body down like the mouth that it looked like, but the purple strings seemed to have frozen that part of him. He was almost finished.

Samus, seeing that the Emperor was finally frozen called out to the others and started charging her Power Beam. Link reacted instantly. He made a bomb arrow and shot straight at the Emperor. It exploded and the massive Ing shrieked and tried to escape, but Meta had flown up to him, and unleashed a blistering combination of sword strikes. The Emperor spun around…only to be confronted with a jetpack flying Diddy, who threw an Orange Grenade right into the Emperor's core, causing massive damage.

The Emperor spun around one last time, and saw Samus, pointing her fully charged arm cannon at him. Realizing that his second chance for life was gone, he didn't move, and stood there, ready to take the attack that would end his life again. A life that shouldn't have begun in the first place, let alone being brought back to fight again.

Samus examined the information her suit gave her and grinned. Looked like this was going to work.

She fired her shot. But rather than a normal Power Beam, the beam glowed a brighter orange, was five times larger, and actually looked like a combination of Power Beam and missiles. Actually, that's exactly what this "Super Missile" was, a charged Power Beam combined with five missiles to create an extremely powerful attack.

The Super Missile covered the distance in a second, and shredded the weakened Emperor's core before exploding. Before the explosion faded completely, there was another one, actually several, as all the Ing and their Emperor exploded into the now expected healing pink dust.

The Smashers looked at each other for a second, weary smiles on their faces, as the door revealed itself, near Bario. Samus and the others walked towards it, and with a single shot the Smashers entered the now open door, eager to talk, but considerably more eager to leave the room that still stank of the Ing darkness.

There are still plenty of Samus's old enemies left, keen on a long awaited vengeance. This adventure was far from over…


	23. Kraid Krashes the Party

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Twenty-Three: Kraid's Massive Revenge. Extremely Massive. Large, Big, Enormous really.**

On the elevator ride down to the next level in this revamped Zebes, most of the Smashers were congratulating Bario and Samus for their impressive job against the Emperor. Most of them.

"Samus, that was a sweet explosion!" Falco said, still slightly giddy from not being dead.

"Bario…that magic thing…was AWESOME!" Diddy said.

"Yeah, I was very impressed," Samus told him.

While they laughed and told everyone how great they were, Link hung back, glaring angrily at Bario's back. Seeing him, Samus detached herself, and since she had a bit of extra time, since this elevator seemed to either be going slower, or traveling farther…or both, went to talk to him.

"Link…," she started, unable to continue as he turned his piercing, blue eyes on her. His expression changed from one of anger, to a smoother, but more emotionless one.

"What?" he said, loudly enough to be heard, but quiet enough to avoid detection from the others, as the elevator was a decent size.

"Look…I know you don't trust Bario…but please, give him a chance. He seems to be trustworthy, and-"

"He's not who he says he his!" Link said, cutting Samus off, "I already explained that his story doesn't match up!"  
"So what?! He might have a perfectly good reason for that! Besides, everyone else is starting to pick up on your emotions, you're not keeping them well-hidden!"  
"Your point is?! I don't want our blind trust of this guy to come back and bite us in the butt! And besides, what does it matter if everyone else knows I don't like him?"  
"It's going to destabilize the team! I don't know how much longer we're going to be together, but if we start fighting each other, we'll never survive! Don't you-"

Their conversation was abruptly stopped when the elevator door opened. Exchanging a quick look, Samus and Link left with the others, who didn't seem to notice the argument between them.

The nine fighters, not knowing what to expect, expected everything. They immediately spread out, the cheer seemed to leap away from their faces, as all their weapons were aimed and charged at…nothing?

It was very obvious that this room was very different. It was the same size as the others…obscenely large, although the ceiling seemed higher than usual, but was almost unnaturally bright after the previously dim rooms. The entire room was a sickly bright green and pale orange, and taking up half of the room was what looked like a humongous pit of thorns. Unfortunately, the pit was between the Smashers, and the exit door, which as usual, was dim and clearly not operating.

Further augmenting the differences in this room were several small platforms. None were larger than five feet long, or two feet wide. They jutted down from the ceiling, from the walls and floated mysteriously in midair. They were situated in ways so that a decent jumper could conceivably reach all of them…but none of them were over the fifty plus foot long pit of thorns. The small un-thorny section of land that the closed door was on seemed impossibly far away…

The entire room was easy to see, and it took them all a while for their eyes to adjust, after a string of dim chambers. They took several steps forward, sweeping the room and squinting. While the elevators had decent lighting, this whole room seemed off, and the strange lighting was bothering the Smashers…especially Samus, who had a good idea of what was lurking in the pit…

"What is going on here? Is there nothing to fight?" Diddy asked, wandering around, getting closer to the pit of thorns.

"Yeah…there's like no place to hide…and that door is closed, what's up with that?" Falco asked following Diddy.

"No! Don't go by the-" Samus said, as the two got too close to the pit, and a massive clawed green, arm, easily ten feet long whipped up and out, shattering several thorns and smacking both Diddy and Falco into a wall.

A second, identical arm shot out, and both arms started wildly slashing at the Smashers. The majority of the heroes jumped back, although Bario got a nasty cut on his chest. They seemed safe from the arms as long as they kept their distance, but these arms had a surprise…

They started flinging their claws at them. Each of the arms had three fingers, with three claws, that could be detached and thrown as a weapon…and instantly regenerated. Each of these claws was over a foot in length, and even if they didn't skewer the Smashers, they would certainly hurt.

The standing Smashers did their best to avoid or deflect the attacks, but the claws were fast and unpredictable due to their shape.  
"Samus! What is this?!" Link yelled, knocking a claw away with his shield.

"It's Kraid!" she said, dashing away from an attack and firing a missile at the left arm.

"You mean that giant thing I saw in our second Smash Tournament?!" Link said, vaguely recalling the massive lizard that attempted a few times to halt the matches. Violently. With much violence. And a small amount of extreme violence thrown in there.

"I remember him! He's the one who kept trying to swipe us into lava…why were we having a match over lava again?" Falco said, helping Diddy get up.

"That's the one!" Samus said.

"I have a feeling, then, that this is going to be bad," Bario said, doing his best to deflect the majority of claws with his swords.

After the initial shock wore away, and all the Smashers took their lumps, they started responding with their now often used projectile attacks. The two arms flailed around, and made themselves difficult targets, but were hit nonetheless, as all but Bario used distance attacks, which created quite a field of fire. Soon there was a loud shriek from beneath the thorns, and the arms slammed down onto the ground, motionless.

Before anyone could ask a question, Samus spoke.

"He's not dead. Stay back…," she warned.

The two arms flexed suddenly, and palms down, started to push. The thorns crackled and flew up as Kraid started pulling himself up and out of the pit, sending spiky chunks of thorns all over the chamber, and several of the Smashers suffered from minor cuts as the painful barbs cut into a few of them.

All they could see was Kraid's head and part of his upper body; the rest of him was buried beneath the apparently extremely deep thorn pit. He was a light greenish color on his underside, but the majority of him was a dark green. He had bumpy scales and three large red eyes. His mouth was most of his head, and it was long and shaped like short alligator jaws, but with more teeth. The part of him that was sticking up was almost twenty feet high, there was no telling how massive he'd be if he fully came out of the pit.

He roared, and shot his hands out, barely missing Samus and Kirby, his reach having been considerably extended now that more of his body was out of the pit. The Smashers opened fire, and were easily able to hit him with most of their attacks. He was a very large target. Kraid countered with arm slashes, and more of his detachable claws. He had better aim now that his head was above the surface, and he could see his targets, but they held their own.

At least, they were holding their own until they realized that Kraid really didn't care about their attacks. If they hurt, he didn't seem to notice.

"Samus? How do we hurt this guy?" Falco asked, ducking under an attack.

"Well…I have an idea…aim for the mouth and fire when I say go," she said.

The Smashers adjusted their aim as Samus leapt up and shot off a missile into his center eye. Kraid shrieked loudly…and opened his mouth.

"Now!" Samus said, but her command wasn't needed because as soon as the giant lizard…thing, opened his mouth they figured out what to do, and started firing like crazy into his mouth. Kraid shrieked even more, and this time he even looked like he was in pain…and then he closed his mouth and his eyes and started pushing himself up even more.

The Smashers stopped firing temporarily as all of Kraid was revealed finally. As he pushed himself out of the thorns he crushed them, causing the thorns to become a fine dust, which was packed thickly by his weight. They stared as he rose up…and up…and up. He was easily the largest foe they faced so far on this journey…and perhaps ever will.

He stood over sixty feet tall, and was very wide. He seemed to have the vestiges of a tail, and short stumpy legs. His arms, though long, now seemed almost feeble compared to his massive bulk, and there were three sections down Kraid's belly with weird thick spikes. He roared again, snapping the Smashers out of their stunned stupor…and into action.

Kraid continued throwing claws at them, but as they ran around the room avoiding those, several of the Smashers stepped on the thorns, injuring their feet and hampering their movement. And now that Kraid was so high they couldn't hit his eye…things were looking bad…

Bario looked around the arena, trying to see anything they could use to their advantage…just as Mario leapt up to one of the lower platforms. Bario grinned.

"Guys! The platforms! We need to get to the top so we can hit Kraid!" Bario said.

The others nodded, and soon the Smashers were turning their attentions to the series of platforms. There was one reasonably low to the ground that Raichu clambered up on, as Mario speedily leapt to the top, with Falco trailing behind. Raichu looked up and realized that his jumping ability wasn't the greatest. He could do it, but it would be tough…at least until Diddy ran over.

"Raichu! I'm going to grab you with my tail!" Diddy said, ducking under a random claw.

"You're what?" Raichu asked, as Diddy whipped his tail around him, and then started using his rocket-barrels to fly up the platforms, with Raichu hanging on…extremely tightly.

Kirby and Meta had no problem ascending the platforms. Meta simply flew up, while Kirby sucked in huge amounts of air and used it to make the pink puffball float up. Samus and Link looked at each other, nodded, and shot out their Hookshot and Grappling Beam, latching onto the platforms and propelling the two Smashers up rapidly.

Bario leapt up the platforms, noticing that there were five distinct levels to this chamber. The ground floor, and then four levels of platforms evenly spaced, and all stationed at one of four heights.  
"This doesn't make any sense…why is this place set up with platforms that will allow us to reach his weak spot…what's going on?" Bario wondered to himself. His question was quickly and unfortunately answered.

Falco was one platform level below Mario, who, with Meta was at the top. Samus and Link were on the first level, and Bario, Kirby, Diddy and Raichu were on the second. Falco was about to make the last jump when something whizzed past his face, nearly smashing into him.

He spun around to see a thick greenish spike quivering in the wall behind him. A second spike flew past him, close enough to cut his left arm-wing. Turning around he saw Kraid shooting the spikes in his belly. Falco leapt over another one and scrabbled for purchase on the top level of platforms. A fourth spike shot under him, almost impaling his legs…geez, how many did this thing have?! Falco struggled to pull himself up, and was about to resign himself to a very painful meeting with a spike, when Mario leapt over and yanked him up, to relative safety.

Samus ducked under a spike, and then shot another into smithereens. Link deflected one with his shield, but the force of it was so strong that he was sent tumbling over the side, and only barely managed to stick his sword in the side of the surprisingly soft platform.

"Samus! What's going on?!" Diddy said, trying to get his jet-pack to take him and his defenseless passenger to a safe location. Raichu was trying very hard not to freak out. He had rarely felt so helpless before. Not only was he completely relying on Diddy, who granted he did trust, but if he tried to attack the electricity would shock Diddy. Not a good situation.

"Kraid's got an unlimited amount of those things! They're like his claws, they just keep growing back! Watch out, and keep climbing!" she said, trying to find a place that she could use to get off the first level, unaware of Link's plight.

"So that was the plan…the platforms are designed to put us at the right height for his spikes," Bario said to himself, casually swiping away one, "But…seeing how some of them miss…it looks like he can't aim them, meaning that his attention is focused on…" he trailed off, as he looked up…at the guys who made it to the top.

Falco didn't have a chance to thank Mario, because Kraid decided to start swiping at them. His claws cut the air several feet in front of Mario, just as Meta shot three energy balls at Kraid's head. Ignoring the attack Kraid let out a low growl and started throwing his claws again. Not only did Mario and Falco have to dodge them, but several started falling below the upper level…adding more problems to those beneath them.

Bario flipped over a spike, landing on it as it flew towards the far wall. He then used it as a springboard to hop up to the third level, where Kirby was using his Cutter to destroy spikes flying towards him.

"Ugh!" Bario cried in frustration, placing himself next to Kirby and assisting with the spikes, "These spikes are just designed to slow us down and split us up! We're never going to kill this guy at this rate!"

Kirby, seeing Bario, leapt up and started floating to the top, as Diddy and Raichu managed to put themselves down behind them, as Diddy's jetpack needed a minute to recharge.

"Hey Bario…don't give up, we can do this!" Diddy said, trying to remain cheerful…just as a claw flew down from above, nearly impaling Raichu.

"Diddy? Not a good place to be!" he said.

"Hey Samus!" Link cried, as he felt his sword slipping, "A little help here!"

He was about fifteen feet off the ground…survivable, but not a particularly comfortable fall…especially with all the broken thorns.

Samus shot another spike to dust, turned and saw Link barely hanging on. She gave a feigned groan of exasperation, and dashed over to him.

"Do I have to do everything for you?" she asked playfully, grabbing his arm and yanking him.

"Yeah, yeah, shut up," Link said, with a half-smile.

Kraid chose that moment to fire a spike into Samus's back. The force of it knocked her into Link, sending both tumbling below, the spike coming free in the fall.

"Agh! Samus! Samus-hurgh!" Link groaned, hitting the ground hard, with Samus landing not to softly on him. She didn't move.

The others were gradually making their way up. Diddy and Raichu were knocked down to the second level by a narrowly missing spike, and Bario was doing his best to keep the third level clear for the monkey and mouse.  
At the top Mario, Falco, Meta and Kirby leapt, flew and floated around the dozen or so platforms on the top level, avoiding Kraid's claws and dealing minor potshots to the beast. They tried hitting his eye, but none of their projectiles seemed to be powerful enough to get him to open his mouth, and none of them were willing to get close enough for him to swipe at them.

"Agh…Samus? You okay…OW!" Link said, carefully trying to push Samus off him, only to move slightly and realize that there were several thorns in his back. He let out a grunt of effort and managed to lift her up…only to have her move in surprise and fall back down.

"Link?! What happened?"  
"We fell…and ow…," he said weakly.

"Oh! Sorry!" she said scrambling to get off him.

"It's okay," he mumbled.

"We fell…," she said to herself, looking up at the others battling Kraid, "I must have banged my head a bit…I was knocked out," she explained.

"The spike didn't hurt you?" Link asked, moving his arms to help himself up, and wincing as the thorns dug in deeper…his leg didn't feel too great either.

"Those things aren't as sharp as they look, and my armor is pretty thick, so I guess I'm fine," Samus said, standing up and looking at Link, "I don't think you are though, your leg looks-"

"I'm fine!" Link said irritably, leaping to his feet…before his leg gave out and he collapsed with a sharp cry…onto more thorns.

"I was going to say, your leg looks broken. Stay here, I'll help the others," Samus said, in a voice that could have been mocking, if it was delivered in a different way. As it was, it just made Link give Samus an annoyed half-smile and wave her on.

"Fine, I'll be okay. Just hurry up and kill that guy."  
Samus nodded and than started leaping and grappling up the platforms.

At that time Diddy and Raichu managed to fight their way up to the top platform, with Bario following close behind. With all but two of the Smashers on the top level Kraid was feeling the heat from them. Bario still acted as a protector, since he had no projectile attacks, and mostly prevented Kraid's flying claws from hitting the others. The remaining six used their projectiles, to limited effect, until Diddy got an idea.

Using his jetpack, and hoping the others would distract Kraid, Diddy flew close enough to Kraid to throw a grenade at his eye. It exploded, as grenades tend to do, and Kraid opened his mouth in pain. The others leapt on this opportunity and increased the firepower coming from their weapons, all focused at his mouth.

As Diddy's jetpack died, he pulled out another Orange Grenade and threw it in the mouth as well, before landing and rolling near the edge of a platform.

"Nice job, Diddy!" Bario said, raising his swords defensively in case Kraid retaliated suddenly.

"Ow, and thanks," Diddy said, slightly stunned, glad that these grenades of his were helping him contribute to the others. If he was lucky, he wouldn't even have to use his extra weapon until Giga…

Regrettably for everybody, Kraid closed his mouth far too soon…and retaliated in an unexpected way. He lashed out his arms, smashing two of the floating platforms…the ones that Bario and Diddy were on. The two platforms careened into the wall, breaking off massive chunks off of both objects…and started to fall.

Diddy snapped himself out of his stunned state and hurriedly activated his jetpack. A sixty-plus foot fall onto thorns would not be fun…or even likely survivable. However it looked like Diddy had overused his jetpack recently and it sputtered once before fading.

"Ah! AH! AHHHHH!" Diddy screamed, as the platform, losing its small grip on the wall started to fall faster.

"Be quiet! You're fine!" Bario said, leaping off his platform, grabbing Diddy and jabbing one of his swords in the soft wall, to help slow their fall.

The other Smashers on the top stared at Kraid in shock as he roared again before grabbing one of the third level platforms stuck on the wall and ripping it off. The beast then threw it at Kirby and Raichu who, in dodging it, fell off the top level of platforms, to land roughly on the third level.

As Bario slid past them he called out.

"Guys! Drop to the floor, it's too dangerous there!"

A spike shot from Kraid, narrowly missing Raichu.

"Guess he's right!" Raichu muttered as he and Kirby quickly and carefully made their way down.

Kraid was not done. He shuffled forward, causing Link to have to roll painfully out of the way and grabbed a platform jutting out from the ceiling. He ripped it off and threw it at Mario and Falco, who managed to leap down the platforms rapidly, avoiding the attack as Kraid worked himself into a frenzy, destroying most of the upper two levels of platforms.

Samus managed to avoid the falling debris and get on one of the last top level platforms. The only Smasher who had managed to stay up there was Meta-Knight, who flapped slowly in front of Kraid, just out of reach.

Realizing that she would probably only get one shot at this Samus started charging her Power Beam.

"Meta! I need you to stab his eye when you've got an opening!" Samus said, not turning away from Kraid who was watching her carefully, as if wanting her to make the first move.

"Project Pickle is a GO!" Meta said cheerfully, raising his sword.

Kraid turned his large head towards Meta, and began to growl, when Samus called out to it.

"Hey Kraid! You ready to get blown up again?"  
Kraid roared, but didn't open his mouth enough for Samus to get a shot in.

"Don't roar at me! That's rude!" Samus said mockingly.

Kraid roared again, raising his arms, as if he was preparing to strike.

"That's right, you-"

Kraid roared again.

"AGH! I said don't inter-"

Kraid roared.

"Cheese CHARGE!" Meta shrieked, diving towards the distracted Kraid.

Kraid had just enough time to see Meta plunge his sword all the way through his center eye. He let out a massive shriek, opening his mouth wide…just as Samus hoped.

"Bye, fatty," she said, firing off her bright yellow Super Missile into Kraid's mouth.

At the ground floor the remaining Smashers gathered together. There weren't enough platforms left to climb back up, as Kraid's rampage destroyed most of the upper level ones…which fell on the lower level ones, destroying or damaging them. Currently Bario was attempting to tend to Link.

"I don't need your help!" Link said, backing away from the mysterious mage/swordsman…or at least, crawling away.

"Link, come on, I can at least numb the pain!" Bario said, trying to appear unthreatening.

"Don't worry about it!" Link snarled, "It only hurts-AGH!" he said as he put some weight on his leg, "Ugh…it only hurts, ow, a lot. I'm fine, and I DON'T WANT YOUR HELP!" he said very clearly.

Bario shook his head, and turned his attention to Kraid, who chose that time to have his head explode in a large ball of fire.

"Alright Samus!" Falco said, punching his fist in the air.

Kraid let out a colossal shriek, before following the previous villain's examples and exploding into a massive cloud of pink dust, which did its traditional job of healing everybody, and everything…even Link's leg.  
Meta slowly flapped down. Link looked up anxiously, but before he could think about helping Samus down, she jumped off the platform…and fell sixty feet.

"AGH!" Diddy, Raichu, Falco and Link said, as Samus plummeted to the floor…where she hit, bent her knees, and stood up as if nothing happened.

"Uh…guys? Chill. My suit can absorb damage from falls like they didn't even happen," she said. The others stared open-mouthed. Well, at least the four who screamed did. Bario and Kirby just grinned, Mario seemed indifferent and Meta…who knew what was going on there?

After a minute, where everyone calmed down from the fight Bario drew everyone's attention.

"Alright guys, that fight was brutal, but we have to keep going. Don't forget, we are doing some good here. I have a feeling that this is the bad guy's last stand. Once we take out them, and the Hands, we'll probably be living in peace for a long time."

"Yeah, but that's only if we can get through all these guys," Falco said.

"I think we will," Raichu said, "We have to. I still haven't found Mewtwo."

"And Giga Bowser is still out there!" Diddy said, enflamed at the thought of Mario's super-powered nemesis.

"Right and we will-" Bario started, before a black portal opened up fifteen feet away.

"What?" Link said, readying his sword.

The others prepared themselves for all manners of beasts and baddies…but not for a short man with a large white mushroom with red spots on his head. The man, a "Toad", ran towards Mario and grabbing at Mario's clothes in desperation, screaming in panic and fear.

"Mario! Mario! It's awful!" the Toad shouted clutching at Mario's shirt.

Mario looked questioningly at the Toad, and he answered Mario's unspoken question.

"It's Peach and Luigi…they're gone!"


	24. Ridley's Here!

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Twenty-Four: Plot Twists, Space Dragons and Villainous Scheming? It can only mean one thing…Ridley's here!**

"Mario! Mario! You have to do something!" Toad shrieked, running around Mario in a panic.

It's been five minutes since Toad came through the mysterious portal, revealed that Princess Peach of the Mushroom Kingdom and Luigi Mario, Mario's younger brother was missing. After that interesting tidbit of information was given, Toad spent the next several minutes running around in panic, ignoring everyone. Eventually Diddy and Raichu decided to go talk privately, as did Link and Samus. The rest stayed by the Toad, to try and get him to calm down.

"Toad! What's going on?" Bario yelled.

"I'll tell you what's going on!" Toad shrieked, not ceasing his running, "EVERYTHING! Everything has gone wrong! Oh! Oh! It's AWFUL! HOW? How can this be? No! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! N-Agh!" Toad said, as Mario smacked him in the face with his hammer.

There was a brief moment as Bario, Kirby, and Falco stared at Mario in shock. Before anyone could respond, the Toad shook his head and got up.

"Thanks Mario. I needed that."

After a minute Bario shook his own head, and tried to focus on the current problem.

"Okay…now that you're calm, maybe you can tell us what's going on," he asked, commandingly, but not threateningly.

The Toad looked nervous again, and was wringing his hands…but seemed to muster up enough courage to talk.

Meanwhile, Diddy and Raichu were deep in their own discussion, off to the side, but careful to avoid the thorns and debris left behind in the massive battle against Kraid.

"Diddy…we need to calm down," Raichu said, before Diddy interrupted him.

"What do you mean?! I am calm!" he yelled angrily, before a look from Raichu made him catch himself, "Oh…yeah, maybe you're right."

"It's frustrating, this journey we're on," Raichu started, "We're fighting constantly and we don't seem like we've made any progress. Sure we stopped some bad guys, but the major villains of both worlds we've been to, Bowser and Ganondorf, have escaped with those stupid hands."  
At Bowser's name, Diddy's eyes narrowed.

"That stupid overgrown lizard! I don't care how powerful he is, I will get vengeance!"  
"Diddy! That's exactly what I'm talking about! We can't go blind with fury every time Bowser/Giga Bowser or…_Mewtwo_ is mentioned! That almost got you killed when you saw him before Hyrule!"

"I could have taken him!" Diddy said vehemently, "Besides, you don't see me rocketing off in anger every time we fight do you?"  
"No! That's not the point! If we're going to fight and beat the people that destroyed our loved ones, we have to be realistic. You could not have beaten Giga Bowser. Heck, there's no way you could beat Bowser, just like there's no way I can beat Mewtwo. It's just not going to happen!"

"So what?" Diddy said angrily, "You just want to give up then?"  
"NO!" Raichu said, "Just the opposite in fact."

The conversation shared between Samus and Link was not quite as loud, but just as heated. Link made sure that he and Samus were a good distance away from everybody before talking.

"Samus! I can't stand that Bario!" he said, before she had a chance to ask him what it was about.

"What? I know that. Why are you telling me again?"

"Because it's important that you know!" Link said, looking at Samus with a strange look in his eye. She didn't know it, but he was thinking about the time she took off her helmet to eat, way back when they first arrived in Hyrule. Her long blond hair, beautiful eyes, unbelievable face…almost made him forget Zelda. He wasn't sure what to think…but he knew he felt something. The only question was whether or not it mattered…

Samus thought she saw a glimmer of…something, in Link's eyes and she felt immediately uncomfortable so she tried to move the conversation back on track.

"Alright…uh…Link, why is it important that I know about Bario?"

"Okay," the Toad said, "After you guys left, nothing happened for awhile. All the Koopas and other guys who worked for Bowser seemed to vanish for a little while. All the areas they guarded were suddenly empty."

"That must have been when he called them all to his castle to try and kill us!" Falco said, before he was quickly shushed by Meta-Knight, who was telling himself the value of a good day's cheese. Yeah. Cheese.

"Anyways, nothing seemed to happen for about a day, although someone did see a giant hand floating around Bowser's castle," Toad continued, "But shortly after that a swarm of Bowser's minions, a concentration we've never seen, swarmed out of every entrance and met up with Bowser outside Toad Town," Toad said.

"What?!" Bario said, the same surprise in his voice evident in Mario's face, "He was there?! How?!"  
The Toad seemed even more nervous, almost as if he blamed himself for the next part of his account, but kept going.

"I-I-I don't k-know," he stammered, "I just know what happened, not why or how," he said, apparently afraid of punishment for his lack of knowledge. He sent a pleading look at Mario, who nodded, which seemed to give the Toad new strength, as he continued on, without the frightened tone.

"They went on, ignoring Toad Town, and Peach's Castle, although we still all…hid. They didn't come back, and after a while…days, we came out…just as news came of Bowser's humongous army sweeping in on Peach and Luigi. They fought back, but Bowser turned into some giant…thing, and took them both out. All three of them vanished, and his army scattered back to their posts," Toad said, relieved that he managed to get all of that out.

"What do you mean, opposite?" Diddy asked hesitantly.

"I mean that we should try harder!" Raichu said vehemently, trying to get Diddy to understand.

"But if we can't beat them…" Diddy said, not seeing the point.

"We can't beat them _alone_!"

"What, do you think the two of us can honestly kill Mewtwo, let alone Giga Bowser?"  
"No!" Raichu said, frustrated.

"Then what's your point?!" Diddy asked, equally frustrated.

"I'm trying to say that we're **not **alone! We have seven other people, who from what I've seen will be more than willing to help. I can at least guarantee that Mario at least will help you kill Giga Bowser, and I'm sure the others will be willing to help out me and you, no questions asked!" Raichu said, with a smile on his face.

"If that's what you wanted to tell me, then how come you started this conversation telling me that we needed to calm down?" Diddy asked in confusion.

Raichu looked blank for a little bit, as he gathered his thoughts, but soon he responded.

"Well, two reasons mainly," Raichu explained, "Reason number one is that when we're angry, we don't think as clearly, and that could screw us up in a fight, and number two…I'm sure they'd help us, but they will be a lot more willing, if we aren't furious all the time."  
"Are you saying we should…manipulate the others?" Diddy asked, not quite as shocked as he could have been.

"Not manipulate…just make sure," Raichu said.

"I don't know…hey! I think something is happening!" Diddy said, as Toad appeared to be finishing his tale, "We should head over there," Diddy told Raichu, who agreed.

"I'm telling you this because I want my suspicions to be known. If something happens to me, I don't want you caught off guard." Link said.

"Why would anything happen to you?" Samus asked.

"I don't know, Yoshi died abruptly…you just never know what could happen…," trailed off.

"Fine. Just tell me your suspicions, and let's have this all out in the open," Samus said, slightly sick of the whole thing.

"Alright, I'll clarify it," Link said, angry that she wasn't taking his thoughts more seriously, "We don't know where he's from, we've never seen him before this, we don't know what he's capable of, and in case you haven't noticed, he's leading our little group!"  
"So?" Samus said, "Have you ever asked him about it?"  
"No! Something about him seems off! He's dangerous!"  
"Yes! To our enemies! He's saved both our lives, admit it!"  
"Yes, but-"  
"But nothing! If he was evil, he wouldn't do that, would he?"  
"I didn't say he was evil," Link said, "Just…not quite right,"

Before the argument could continue, they both noticed Diddy and Raichu rejoining the main group.

"We'll finish this later," Link said, as eager to end the conversation as Samus was. He needed time to think. Samus nodded, and the two headed back to the others.

"Alright," Bario said, "Bowser seems to captured Peach and Luigi, and he's working with the Hands, who we know are also working with Ganondorf. Link," Bario said, as the Hylian joined the group, "I gotta say, this doesn't look good for Zelda. Chances are she was captured before we got there."

Link nodded his head, upset, but not surprised by that inference.

"From that I guess we can determine from when Bowser let it slip that the Hands are also employing the villains of multiple worlds…Samus, whoever is in charge here, is probably working for Master Hand. We'll discuss that after Toad leaves."

Samus also nodded, not happy at all about what was happening.

At the mention of his name Toad perked up.

"Leaves? To where?"

"You should go back through the portal to the Mushroom Kingdom, and let everybody know that…hey wait…how'd you get through this portal?" Bario asked.

"Huh? Oh some weird resident wizard guy, Merlon made it. He and some of his relatives managed to track Mario through the dimensions so they sent me through and figure out what to do about Bowser. It took this long for them to find you guys. Who are you?" Toad asked suddenly.  
"Oh." Bario said, "Well then you-wait what?"  
"Well, I know Mario and the other guys, and I vaguely recall seeing you at the castle, but I don't know you," The Toad said, seemingly more comfortable, and less panicked now that he was sure something was going to be done.

"Oh. Well I'm just a traveling swordsman Mario enlisted to help him. But back to you, I need you to go through the portal, get the wizard to close it and tell everyone that its okay, we're going to stop Bowser and get Peach and Luigi back. Okay?" Bario asked.

After Bario said he was a traveling swordsman, Link mumbled something that only Samus could hear. Samus let out a shocked "Link!" and clocked him in the back of the head roughly with her Arm Cannon. Link yelped, but didn't retaliate, and Bario pretended to ignore the two of them.

"Wait," the Toad said, starting to sound more panicked, "Mario's not coming back?! Why isn't he coming back?! Mario needs to come back! We need Mario! We need HIM! HE HAS TO COME BACK! HE HAS-agh!"

Mario lowered his hammer after hitting Toad again, and waggled his finger.

"Oh no!" Mario told him.

"Toad," Bario said, "If we come back now, we won't be able to do anything. From what you said, Bowser isn't even there anymore. We need to keep traveling and eventually we'll find Bowser and get the others back, okay?"

Toad slowly started to calm down…it seemed that repeated blows to the head from his hero was the only way for him to chill.

"But…but…we need him," Toad said, in a state of shock.  
Mario sighed, walked over, grabbed Toad and threw him soundlessly into the portal.As everyone stared at Mario, the portal snapped shut.

After a moment Bario clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention towards him.

"Well…uh…thanks Mario, I guess. Guys, we better get going. If whoever runs the show here on Zebes is working with Master Hand then I don't want to give them any more time to prepare, so Samus, open the door please, and I'll fill you all in on the information that Toad gave us, okay?" Bario said.

Before Samus could give her approval, Falco raised a question.

"Nice plan…but uh…how are we all going to get over that?" he said, pointing at the pit of thorns, that while Kraid **did** crush them, were still spiky and deep.

"Huh…that's a good question," Bario said, as he looked across the pit to the ten foot square area, where the doorway to the next chamber stood. The walls around that area curved slightly inward, a fact that wasn't apparent when the massive lizard beast was standing there.

"Oh come on," Link said scornfully, seemingly eager to have a chance to show up Bario. Link ran for the edge of the pit, leapt into the air, did a Spin Attack in midair to gain some more momentum and shot out his Hookshot, barely covering the distance to the edge of the wall.

"Well, I guess that's one way," Bario said, with an uneasy look on his face.

Samus jumped and used her Screw Attack, while Kirby floated across. Mario jumped, hit a wall and leapt off that to easily cover the distance. Kirby floated across, the pink puffball surprisingly graceful…for a round creature that floats by inflating himself to ridiculous proportions and then bobbing in a meandering, yet purposeful way…which should be impossible, but Kirby does it.

"Uh…there's no way I could make that…unless," Raichu started, before Diddy whipped his tail around him and jetted off.

"Don't worry about it." Diddy told him.

"This is going to be close…" Falco said, before leaping off the edge, and then using his Fire Falco to cover the majority of the distance…but not quite enough. He fell short by about ten feet. He was about to plummet painfully to the thorns, when Samus shot out her Grapple Beam, latched onto his chest and yanked him onto the platform.

"Ow!" Falco said, rubbing his chest where the beam zapped him, and also his face where he hit the ground.

"You're welcome." Samus said.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just glad Link didn't decide to help."  
"What? Why?"

"Because that stupid hook of yours would hurt!"  
"Oh shut up," Link told Falco, but his voice lacked the same venom it always possessed when discussing Bario.

"Okay…" Bario said, "There's no way I can jump that far…Meta?" he asked of the only other Smasher on this side of the platform. Meta was cheerfully and brainlessly flapping around near Bario, but perked up at his name. Bario grabbed onto Meta, who flew both over the thorns, showing considerable strength as Bario was a few inches taller than Link, and had a muscular, albeit slim body shape. He wasn't as solid as Link, and no where near as much as Mario, but he wasn't soft either. Of course, Meta didn't even seem to notice his passenger.

"The personal airlift of Me-ness is making its arrival! Next stop, land of the spiky SPAM! SPAM! SMAP! ME! ME! ME! EM!" Meta said as he deposited Bario near the others.

"I really think we should do something about him," Diddy said.

"Oh, I don't know. He seems happy," Bario said.

"Yeah, but he's freaking annoying," Falco said.

"Well again I tell you that I have no knowledge of how the human brain works, let alone his, so unless you want me to potentially kill him, I think we should leave him like this for now, all right?" Bario said shortly.

"Let's just keep moving," Samus said, opening the door. All of the Smashers piled into the elevator, and Bario filled everybody in on the information received from Toad. This elevator was moving slightly sideways as well, so it didn't cover the vertical ground very fast, and it seemed to have a long way to go. After Bario finished summarizing everything, he took a moment to let everybody digest, but before they could respond, he asked Samus a question.

"Samus…who is the leader of the villains here? That's who we need to watch out for."

Samus nodded, seemingly thinking about that as well, and answered quickly.

"I would have to say Mother Brain. It's a computer that is hooked up to the planet, and is part electronic, part biological. Basically, it looks like a big brain in a tank."  
"Ew!" Raichu said. Apparently he found brains gross.

"And this brain is the leader?" Bario asked in surprise.

At that Samus seemed to pause. After a moment she started talking again, slowly but with a hint of reflection.

"No…it isn't. It coordinates and organizes the dominant evil force in my dimension, the Space Pirates, and is incredibly important to them…but it's not their leader."

After an awkward pause where Samus appeared lost in thought, Link poked her, who started and continued speaking.

"Oh! Uh…actually I think their actual leader is a Space Dragon called Ridley. He seems to be controlling the Space Pirates. I mean…think of Ridley as the president of an evil community of thieving citizens…and Mother Brain is the foundation that the community is built on," Samus said, struggling to explain a concept she wasn't entirely to sure of.

"So…which one is it?" Bario asked, trying to be polite, but just as lost as everybody else.

"I don't KNOW!" Samus said, clearly upset.

"Samus! Relax!" Link said, startled.

"What?" Samus said, confused.

"Is everything okay Samus?" Bario asked.

"Yes! Yes! It's just…I can't shake the feeling that I'm missing something incredibly important…"

"Well, you'll have to worry about it later…we're here," Diddy said, pointing to the door as the elevator came to a stop, and the door snapped open. The room was completely black, although they could here _something _moving in there.

"Samus," Bario said carefully, "Who's on the other side of that door?"

"Ridley," she said confidently, before leaping into the room, as lights flared on all around it.

The Smashers took a step back, covering their eyes as a bright reddish glow emanated from the floor, ceiling and walls. The glow subsided soon, although whether it was because the glow weakened in brightness, or the Smashers eyes adjusted was undeterminable. They were inspired to enter the room when the sound of shots and screeches reached their ears.

Mario was the first one in, followed closely by Link. The others piled in soon after, but immediately halted as they saw Samus exchanging missiles for fireballs from the great Space Dragon, Ridley.

Ridley was large, but nowhere near the size of Kraid. Ridley was maybe fifteen to twenty feet in height…maybe. He was hunched up slightly, although his wings were massive, easily reaching thirty feet from end-to-end. He was a light reddish color, and had a long neck with a joint in the center, that seemed designed to allow him to pull back and strike quickly. His head was long and pointed, with eyes under bony ridges, and a long pointed snout, with a large mouth, and plenty of pointy teeth.

His arms and legs were curled in close to his body, and so their length was difficult to determine, although they looked like they were also designed for quick strikes, and had sharp claws and talons to assist in his combat skills. Rounding out this massive beast's deadly arsenal was a long, coiled tail, which had approximately seventeen small sections, granting it a large range of movement, and the ability to extend it significantly, allowing him to skewer things with the pointed end.

Samus was dodging large fireballs that were spewing from his mouth, while he hovered twenty feet in the air. A good look around the arena showed it to be large and open, perfect for this massive flying creature. In between dodging Samus pelted Ridley with missiles, but he barely reacted, as if they were almost harmless.

"Guys! Start attacking!" Samus yelled, dodging a jab from Ridley's tail.

They started attacking. They immediately did their customary projectile attacks, except for Bario who just watched Ridley carefully, seemingly ready to attack if Ridley got close.

The familiar rain of projectiles hit Ridley, and hit him hard. He was a big target, and didn't seem to have any armor or invulnerable spots…except for his tail which looked like an armored snake. He screeched and took off high into the air. Samus fired some more missiles at him, but at that height Ridley was able to easily avoid them by flying to the side. He seemed quite speedy in the air.

"Ugh!" Samus said, switching to the Ice Beam, trying to save missiles, and hoping the chunks of ice would have better luck hitting Ridley.

Raichu was firing what looked like small lightning bolts, and they did manage to home in and track a bit, so Ridley was getting hit by those, despite his attempts to dodge them. Everyone else's attacks were too slow or didn't have enough range. Samus's Ice Beam attacks did even worse than the missiles, and cursing, she switched to her Power Beam, which thanks to its quick rate of fire was at least able to hit the flying beast, although it did little damage.

After a bit of flying and avoiding the attacks, Ridley started retaliating by opening his mouth and firing multiple fireballs at the Smashers. Link and Bario got hit while the others scattered.  
"This isn't working!" Link said, "Samus do you have an idea?"  
"No!" Samus said, "He seems to be moving much faster than he used to, I got nothing!"

"Looks like he does!" Falco said, pointing at Meta who flew up screaming about babies.

"Babies ate my Dingo!"

See?

"Can he do it on his own?" Raichu asked.

Diddy responded by activating his jetpack and pulling out an orange grenade.

"I don't care if he can. If we want these guys to really fight for us, we need to do the same for them. Raichu, if you can, charge up a BIG lightning bolt, like you did against the evil Links. I have a feeling this guy is going to be tough to take down."

Raichu was taken aback by the logic and calm in Diddy's voice. It seemed like he was actually thinking ahead for a change. But rather than questioning his friend, he just nodded and started crackling with electricity.

Diddy activated his jetpack and flew up, just as Meta intercepted Ridley. Meta slashed a few times at Ridley, who shrieked and raised his arms up to defend himself. Meta paused for a second in his flurry of sword strikes, and that was when Ridley's head lashed out and slammed into Meta's helmet.

Meta staggered and dipped lower, and Ridley extended a claw, obviously intending to grab the masked warrior, when Diddy took advantage of Ridley's distraction and lobbed his grenade at Ridley's face. It exploded and Ridley shrieked again…but before Diddy had a chance to react, Ridley shot forward and grabbed the chimp. He lowered his head, intent on removing Diddy's, when three missiles from Samus slammed into the slowed down Ridley.

Ridley dropped Diddy, clawing him a bit as he slipped from his clutches and spun around in midair, sending numerous fireballs back at the Smashers, who were forced to scatter again.

Diddy plummeted to the ground, struggling to activate his jetpack, as it seemed damaged from Ridley's manhandling.

"Oh crud…this is going to HURT!" he said, curling himself into a ball and aiming himself back first, hoping the two barrels that formed his jetpack would take the brunt of the blow.

Fortunately there was no blow to brunt. He hit…something, something that grunted and then stopped moving. His first thought was that he had hit the rather solid ground, and that it was taking a while for the extreme pain to reach his body. He then realized that no matter how solid the ground is…it doesn't usually grunt. He looked up and saw that a blue feathered bird-man had caught him.  
"Uh…thanks Falco," Diddy said, grateful but slightly embarrassed.

"Don't worry about it. Glad to help," he said with a grin as he put Diddy down gently.

Diddy smiled back, and then clicked a button on his jetpack that caused it to fold up and all but vanish in his short brown fur. Man, that doesn't even seem physically possible.

Ridley shot forth another stream of fireballs, this time hitting Kirby and Samus. This fight was getting interesting. If it went on much longer he would have to activate the arena's "special" little trick…

Meta recovered from the blow to the head, and stabbed at Ridley's chest. Ridley screeched and swung out his pointed tail, which Meta blocked. Ridley positioned himself around the metallic knight so as to avoid projectiles from below and to allow him to get all of his deadly limbs within range.

"Samus! What do we do?" Bario yelled.

"I don't know! He wasn't this quick before! We have to wait for an opening!" she called back, unknowingly contradicting herself, and began charging up her Power Beam.

Meta used his considerable skill, speed and smaller size to dart around the larger Ridley, although Ridley was moving around fast enough to avoid getting hit by attacks from below. The two were exchanging numerous blows, with Meta blocking or avoiding Ridley's tail, his claws and his head. Since Ridley had four different ways to attack, Meta was having a hard enough time protecting himself, and he had no time to strike back.

After about thirty seconds of this stalemate, Ridley got sick of the fight and grabbed Meta's sword. Fighting against the pain the sword caused as it dug into his scaled flesh he yanked Meta closer and slammed him with an open hand…claw…thing. Meta struggled to stay conscious, when Ridley's tail flew straight at him, not penetrating the metal mask but hitting Meta hard enough to send him crashing down to the ground. No one caught Meta.

Ridley had little time to celebrate his victory though as in the time it took for him to knock out Meta, Samus had enough time to aim and fire her Super Missile. The massively powerful attack flew at Ridley, and before he even had a chance to react the missile crashed into him with stupendous force. He shrieked and jerked his head, sending fireballs flying at Samus.

She rolled to the side and leapt up, prepared to fire again, when she saw Ridley, letting out his loud high-pitched shriek, flying straight at her. She fired several missiles, and everyone else did their best to halt him, but Ridley continued, seemingly uncaring of their attacks and slammed into Samus with his side as he spun near the ground and flew back up.  
Ridley's massive body sent Samus flying into a skid, and when she came to a stop she could barely stand, let alone aim her weapon. She staggered up and her suit tried to repair its damaged functions. She didn't have a lot of time…

During the combat Diddy had managed to get near Raichu, who was practically glowing with pent-up electricity.

"Raichu…I don't think you're going to have a better time…"

"Okay…that's…good…I can't…hold it…ANY MORE!" Raichu screamed, releasing the electrical energy from his body in a massive blue-white lightning bolt that crashed into Ridley at a speed so fast, he couldn't even see it coming.

The sheer power of the attack was so great that Ridley was frozen in place, quivering as the lightning traveled over his entire body. He actually started to smoke. After ten seconds the lightning dissipated. Ridley slowly flapped his wings, floating in place.

"Diddy!" Falco yelled, as he and everyone else turned eyes towards Diddy who was staring stunned at Raichu, who was looking up at Ridley, apparently frozen, "What the hell was that?!"

"That," Diddy said, "Was Raichu."  
"Wow," Raichu said, before fainting from energy loss.

"Is it over?" Link asked, walking over towards Samus, who was shaking off any damage done to her.

"I…don't think so," Samus said.

Ridley suddenly let out a loud piercing shriek that reached to all corners of the room…and farther. He spread his wings out wide…and the chamber began to change.

The glow that lit it up brightened…and chunks of the floor started to vanish…as a reddish orange liquid ate away at it.

"Bario!" Diddy said, standing by Raichu, who seemed unable to be awakened, "What's going on?"  
"It's lava!" Bario said, leaping over a widening pool.

"Oh…crap," Samus said, pushing Link and her away from pieces of lava-eaten ground.

"What do we do?" Link said, as Ridley turned his attention towards the grounded and panicking Smashers.

"Mario!" Bario yelled.

Mario looked at Bario, paused in his moving to escape dangerous sections of the floor…and nodded.

Ridley spun around in the air, shooting fireballs off at an incredible speed. Kirby and Falco were both hit multiple times, but when one fireball came flying towards Mario he ducked…and pulled out his cape.

The golden cape flashed brightly, bringing Ridley to a stop as he watched one of his foes that seemed relatively harmless...become his worst nightmare…or at least not a very pleasant one.

The lava ceased rising up from the ground, and although it covered about half of the arena, it was in sporadic pieces, so as long as there wasn't anything distracting, it would be easy to avoid. There were plenty of distracting things.

Mario swung the cape over his head and it seemed, almost as if by magic, to attach itself to him. Mario pulled out his hammer, and with the golden cape flapping behind him…began to run.

Everyone watched Mario with an unexplained fascination, even Ridley. It was like they were all expecting something amazing to happen…and it did. With a sudden great leap he was in the air…and managed to avoid the falling back down part.

To clarify, he was flying. The cape seemed to give him the ability to defy gravity, and while everyone looked at Mario awestruck, he rocketed straight up into Ridley and slammed his head with his hammer.

"Wow," Samus and Link said at the same time.

"I had no idea he could do that!" Falco said, as Mario smashed one of Ridley's claws that he raised to defend himself.

Ridley opened his mouth and let out a torrent of fireballs, but Mario flew over the attack and then came down hard on Ridley's head feet-first. Ridley shrieked and flipped over in midair, arms and tail flashing blindingly fast, but Mario used his smaller size and agility to sneak under Ridley and blast him with a stream of fireballs. Ridley tried to turn over again, but Mario then caught the Space Dragon in an Aerial Mario Tornado…with his hammer. Mario spun rapidly around Ridley, hitting him with his iron-hard hammer and the cape, which seemed to have gained the consistency of steel.

"Mario is really good," Samus said, to which Link nodded his agreement.

"Diddy!" Bario said, "Grab Raichu and get over to Link and Samus! I'm heading over there too!"

Diddy pulled his gaze away from Mario's ass-kicking of Ridley and nodded.

"Come on buddy," he said, picking up the still unconscious electric mouse and started running over the lava patches, "Geez, you're light."  
Falco, who had moved near Kirby during Mario's fight, heard Bario and saw Diddy running towards Link and Samus. Deciding that Bario had some kind of plan, Falco and Kirby exchanged a look before running to meet up with the others.

Bario managed to maneuver his path over towards unconscious Meta, who he scooped up before meeting up with the others.

Ridley was faltering. He had taken massive damage so far, and this flying man was just putting the nail in the coffin. It was time.

Mario blocked a tail strike with his hammer, but before he could retaliate Ridley dove for the ground, screeching, louder than he had before. Mario attempted to follow, worried since Ridley was heading for the area where Falco and Kirby were, the largest section of the floor not touched by the lava…but several green lasers that flew past his face brought him to an abrupt and surprised halt.

Pouring in from hidden hatches around the chamber were six-foot tall humanoids. They appeared to be wearing light armor, and had thin lanky arms and legs, with a crustacean like face and an out of proportioned thick chest. Instead of hands they had large claws that opened up and revealed that some kind of laser gun was positioned there, which was what they were using to fire at the Smashers.

"Samus?" Link said, shooting a bomb arrow at one and killing it instantly.

"Space Pirates! Just hit those guys! Don't ask questions" Samus yelled, shooting off two missiles at one, killing it and damaging another nearby.

About a dozen and a half poured in, firing wildly with their weak and poorly aimed weapons. They appeared unprepared for the arena as three ran straight into lava and died burning and screaming. They served their purpose though…to buy Ridley time. While the Smashers were fighting the inadequately trained, but very enthusiastic Space Pirates, Ridley flew at the ground where Falco and Kirby were standing, his tail whipping past Falco's face.

With a resounding crash Ridley slammed into the floor…and the floor collapsed in massive chunks, revealing a deep, black, sloped tunnel. Ridley dove down it, not halting, while Falco and Kirby struggled to get back to relatively safe ground. As more pieces of the floor fell apart though, that seemed impossible.

"Falco!" Diddy said, dropping Raichu carefully, but quickly. Diddy began to run towards the expanding pit, but a Space Pirate leapt in front of him.

"No!" Mario said, charbroiling a Space Pirate with a particularly powerful fireball, as he dove for Falco and Kirby, arms folded in to increase his speed.

"Guys," Falco yelled, as he and Kirby ducked an attack from a Space Pirate, "It was fun."

Both Falco and Kirby leapt up for an attempt at a final escape, just as three Space Pirates, apparently trying to flee ran into them, knocking them off balance…and all five plummeted into the pit. Mario flew on; heedless of the attacks from the Pirates that the others were trying to finish off…as metal disks came out of the side of the pit and folded over it.

Mario slammed into the newly covered pit with a massive crash…but the disks didn't shatter. More noises indicated that beneath them more and more disks were folding into place, so as to make following Ridley…and their fallen friends, impossible.

Diddy leapt over the Space Pirate attacking him, and then wrapped his tail around its neck, spinning back to the ground, his momentum carried the creature backwards, and with a casual flick Diddy snapped the thing's thin neck…just as he saw Falco and Kirby plummet to their seeming demise.

Seconds after the closing of the pit the rest of the Smashers finished off the Space Pirates. Turning their attention towards Mario, and the pit that swallowed up two of their friends, they were at a loss.

"AAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!" Mario screamed, punching the ground, but the solid metal did not give. So he kept punching, until his white gloves were stained with his blood, and he discovered that there was no more merciless foe than the immovable floor, as beneath them dozens upon dozens of the disks snapped into place, making it impossible for anyone to follow.

"Now…what do we do?" Diddy said, on the verge of collapsing from emotional and physical exhaustion.

Bario stared, shocked at the loss of the two companions, and for once, had no answer.

**Meanwhile…**

In what can only be described as a dimensional prison, evil stirred.  
Well, actually it kind of moved around with a purpose. Stirring implies awaking from sleep, and this thing was by no means sleeping.

It stomped through row after row of locked cages, many inhabited by crying or stubbornly silent, "prisoners", more cages were empty then not, and there was a dark purplish light flashing through from an unseen source, breaking up the piercing bright white light brought forth from glowing panels all over the fifteen foot high ceiling.

It was dragging two unconscious people quite easily behind it. One was tall and wore a scratched and cut up pair of blue overalls and a green shirt. His face and body were similarly injured. There even looked like a burn on his side…

The other was surprisingly pretty, with similarly torn pink clothing, although the obvious fact that it was once a beautiful dress seemed to make the torn clothing more sinister.  
Carelessly the evil monster tossed the two into separate cages and then slammed the iron doors shut, after which they automatically locked with a quiet clang.

After staring at the new prisoners for a minute, to make sure they wouldn't wake up any time soon, the entity moved on, to meet up with another.

It exited through a large door, leaving the gloomy and depressing prison behind, although the new room wasn't much better. It only had three things that stood out from its bare, concrete gray walls. A large screen, like that of a television, a portal that was light-blue and a man.

"It's good to see you finally arrived, Bowser," the man said to the evil turtle.

"Those two were tough to track and take down, Ganondorf," Bowser said, "I bet Zelda didn't give you much trouble," he grumbled.

"On the contrary, she was surprisingly difficult. Her magic skills prevented me from sneaking up on her, and she kept trying to teleport away. It was very frustrating. I am surprised you found those two difficult, what with your transformation," Ganondorf said, with an air of amusement.

"Yeah, well, using that Giga Bowser form outside of the Smashing Realm is exhausting, so it took me forever to work up enough strength to get here."

"Fine. At least you figured out how to do it without the Hands. I can't speak for you, but I hated relying on them."  
"Whatever. Any word from M.C.?"  
"Actually, he just contacted me," Ganondorf said, looking at the screen with a hint of fear, "He told me that the eight Smashers…and the _one _are on Zebes now."  
"That onestill with them? From what he's told me I thought they would have abandoned him by now."  
"Ha!" Ganondorf laughed, the noise harsh and more like a hateful growl than a sound of cheer, "They've actually made him their unofficial leader!"

"Really? He must be good," Bowser said with surprise.

"Of course he is, why else would M.C. be so interested in him?"

"I do wish M.C. would tell what exactly is up with that guy, he's so evasive about the subject…and I really don't like to press him for details," Bowser said with a shiver.

"Yeah, good way to lose your head. Anyways, M.C.'s representative on that planet reported that they're making good progress…but they're having problems. The group isn't getting along so well."

"Let me guess, your buddy Link?"

"For the most part. He doesn't do well working with others, and it looks like that one is making him suspicious."  
"Interesting. Anything else?"  
"Just that Mewtwo finally managed to capture his three. M.C. is sending Master Hand down to pick them up."

"What? Why not just let him come here like us?"  
"Well…it turns out that M.C. wants him to pay a little visit to the Smashers, so…" Ganondorf trailed off.

"Ah. I'm hungry. I was planning on picking up a few Toads for lunch, do you want any?"  
"Uh…no. I'm good. I'll watch the prisoners. Once Mewtwo's three get here, I think the fun is going to start…"

"Your loss," Bowser said, walking over to the portal, "Mushroom Kingdom!" he said, loudly and clearly.

The portal changed color, and the vague image of a large castle overlooking a populous town appeared. Bowser grinned and licked his lips before jumping in.

Ganondorf folded his hands around himself and started walking towards the door.

"The fun is going to start very soon," Ganondorf said, his evil laughing causing many of the occupants in the next room to whimper and moan…

AN: For any news, please refer to my profile.


	25. Mommy Brain

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Twenty-Five: Battle against "Mommy" Brain**

The tunnel was dark. It was also long. As Falco and Kirby plummeted down, only one thought was on their minds. The sudden stop at the end of this free-fall. Because, see, the falling isn't that bad. It's the part when gravity slams its presence home by crushing you against the ground. That part sucks.

"This sucks!" Falco said, for about the third since they've been falling. Yeah, it's a _long _drop.

The Space Pirates that fell in with them had been quickly dispatched by the two falling heroes and Ridley was long gone; Falco figured that he must have sped through this escape tunnel.

Of course, a tunnel seemingly leading to the core of the earth was convenient for a guy who could fly, but for Falco, who unfortunately needed state of the art hardware to defy gravity, it just seemed like his tomb.

As for Kirby, well he tried to suck in air to hold himself up, but he was falling too fast, and every few seconds he would hit Falco or one of the smooth walls. Fortunately, while the tunnel was dark there was some lighting. Falling in pitch black would have been bad.

After a while Falco noticed something. They were still falling down…but they were also falling sideways. The tunnel was sloping!

"Kirby! Grab onto the sides of the wall, and spread out your body…thing!" Falco said thinking fast as he followed his own instructions.

Kirby didn't get it, but did it anyways. The two of them clutched onto the smooth metal's sloped sides, and as the sides sloped more, the friction started to slow them down. Within thirty seconds, they were halted.

"Wow, I can't believe that worked," Falco said, breathing a sigh of relief.  
"Ok," Kirby said, grumpy from getting a severe "metal"-burn.

"Now we just need to figure out how to get back," Falco said, looking up the tunnel.  
Unfortunately, before either one could figure out a plan, a loud clanging was heard. It sounded metallic…and it was getting louder.

"What is that? It sounds like metal on metal…oh," Falco said, as what seemed like half a mile up the dim tunnel, silver metal disks were slamming across the gap, blocking the way up…and heading down towards the two Smashers…fast.

"RUN!" Falco said, as he and Kirby leapt up and started running, with the tunnel slowly straightening out.

Regrettably, the sides were slick enough that the two kept stumbling, and steep enough that they fell over a few times. Those disks were getting closer…and rapidly.

"This isn't working!" Falco said, a note of panic inching into his voice…actually, it was a bit more than a _note _and it was moving quite a bit faster than merely _inching_.

"Yeah!" Kirby said, stopping.

Falco ran past Kirby, tripped, and then saw his companion wasn't moving.

"I didn't mean give up! If those things hit us…we're going to get sliced!"  
Kirby turned into his smooth bottomed and a rounded top rock form. Thanks to the smoothness, Kirby did what he usually did when he was on a slope…he started to slide.

"Kirby? What are you-agh!" Falco shouted, as Rock-Kirby slammed into his knees from behind, knocking him over onto the rock's top, and speeding the two down the slope.

Falco quickly caught on to what Kirby was doing, and by laying down low on top of Kirby, Falco tried to increase their alacrity…but the increasingly louder sounds of the metal disks revealed that they weren't going fast enough.

But up ahead, they saw brighter light, emanating from an opening in the tunnel…an opening they were heading towards at full speed!

"Come on Kirby! Come ON!" Falco said, as a particularly close clang caused him to jump.

They only a few dozen yards away from their escape, and closing fast, but the disks, almost seeming to sense their presence appeared to speed on ever faster. Panicking, Falco yanked out his pistol and fired lasers at the disks…which did nothing.

"Oh why did I think that would work?!" he moaned as the disks slammed into place inches behind his trailing feet, which he yanked in closer to himself.

"This is going to be close!"

CLANG!  
"Agh!" Falco said, as the disk closed…on the edge of his tail feathers.

With a whoosh, Kirby and Falco shot out of the tunnel, and came to a painful skid on rough ground. Kirby turned back into his normal puffball self, as Falco brushed himself off and rubbed his…feathers. The two of them grinned at each other, having narrowly escaped death, when the sound of low haggard breathing brought them back to reality, as they realized they weren't the only ones that had been in the tunnel…

_**Back to the Others…**_

Mario stopped punching the metal floor where the tunnel to where Falco and Kirby had vanished. He had been punching for three solid minutes, while the others were in various states of shock and disbelief. After all his punching, with all his considerable might, all he had managed to do was cause a two-inch thick dent in the floor. He would have kept trying, but he knew it was hopeless.

The others weren't faring much better. Meta-Knight and Raichu were both still unconscious from the fight against Ridley, and while Samus, Link, Bario, Mario and Diddy were still capable of fighting, none of them seemed to willing to go on after the loss of Falco and Kirby.

Bario cleared his throat, and with a quiet, beaten voice, called out to the others, who had grouped together near the tunnel.

"Guys, I know this is hard…but we have to press on. Ridley is still alive…and well…maybe Kirby and Falco are too-"

"Oh shut up, you stupid sh-" Link said, tinges of hatred in his voice, before Samus shushed him.

"Link! Don't say that!"  
"And why not? It's all his fault we're here in the first place!" Link shouted, his eyes blazing with pent-up rage.  
"Link!" Diddy yelled, "That's not fair!"

"So, what? He just happened to create a portal to a place where we lost two people, and two more are knocked out? I don't think so!"  
"Link," Bario started to say, before he was interrupted again.

"No! I'm sick of suspicions! I'm sick of you pretending to be someone you're not! Explain yourself! RIGHT NOW!" Link screamed, conflicting emotions inside of him, and disruptive circumstances on the outside, were causing him to fall apart mentally.

Bario walked over to Link and looked him in the face, purple eyes now blazing with the same fiery rage as Link's blue eyes. They stood like that for a full minute, before Bario pulled back and punched Link in the face.

There were gasps of shock from everyone conscious, as Link fell to the ground, surprised…and vindicated.

"I knew it!" Link hissed, jumping up and pulling out his sword and shield, "I knew you were bad news! Well this ends now-OUCH!" Link shouted, as Mario slammed him in the back with his hammer, eliciting another startled gasp from Samus and Diddy.

"So!" Link said, struggling to get up, "Mario's in on it too eh? Well I'll stop him too-eep!" Link said, as Bario's sword appeared at his throat.

"I don't know what your problem is with me, and I don't really care. I will lead the rest of us, not because I want to, but because we need someone to focus our group, to stop the villains. This is neither the time nor the place for us to fight each other. Now I suggest you stay down, until you CALM DOWN," Bario said, the fire in his eyes belying the ice in his voice.

"Link, he's right. We have things to do. We can settle this later," Samus said.

Link looked around, and nodded.

"You guys are right. I'm not sorry though. After this is all done, you DO have some explaining to do Bario," Link said, the threat evident in his voice.

"I look forward to it," Bario said, sheathing his sword, becoming immediately cheerful.

Link growled and put away his own weapons while getting to his feet. Looking around at the lava filled floor, he picked up Raichu and started walking towards a section of the floor covered in lava.

"Agh! Link! What are you doing?!" Diddy asked, running after him.

"I'm carrying your friend. I'm _trying_ to be helpful. What did you think I was doing?" Link asked, hopping over the lava.

"I…uh…don't worry about it," Diddy said.

Bario picked up Meta, and the six Smashers headed over to the doorway out. Samus shot it open, and they went into the now familiar elevator. It sped down faster than previous ones.

"Samus," Bario said, doing his best to overlook the division happening among them, "What do you think is next?"  
"Well…Ridley is still alive, so we're going to have to fight him again…but I think what's next is…Mother Brain," Samus said, as the elevator slowed to a stop.

"That was fast," Link said, clutching Raichu.

"This is going to be bad," Samus said, checking her Arm Cannon.

The doors opened…and the Smashers jumped out, with Bario and Link placing their unconscious companions down near the wall. The five capable fighters drew their weapons…and were attacked.

Space Pirates jumped at them, slashing with their crab-claw like arms or shooting lasers at them. The Smashers were caught off guard, but managed to retaliate, slicing, smashing or shooting. The Space Pirates seemed more experienced and well-trained then the ones fought in Ridley's room, as they repeatedly dodged and jumped, showing a combat competency not seen in the earlier Pirates.

Still, compared to the fighting prowess of the Smashers, they stood little chance. Shortly, the ten Pirates that attacked them were finished, and pleased with their success, the Smashers turned their attention…to the army of Space Pirates assembled on the other side of the chamber. They had arranged themselves in four rows of ten, and all of them looked ready to rumble.

"Oh f-" Diddy said, as forty Space Pirates leveled their weapons.

A forty-first Space Pirate came out from the group. This one was larger, and unlike the dark blue/purple armor the others wore, this one's was a startling red/black.

"Give up," The Space Pirate Commander said, in a low, guttural voice that was more beast than being, "You don't stand a chance."

"No one move. We surrender," Samus said, raising her arms up.

"Agreed. They have us beat," Bario said, sheathing his swords and doing the same.

Mario followed their lead, but Diddy and Link were shocked.

"What?" Link asked, shocked, "We're giving up! They won't show us any mercy!"

"Link's right! As soon as we drop our guard they're going to kill us!"

"They outnumber us eight to one! Two of our group is unconscious, and two more are gone! We're weakened! They would wipe us out!" Bario said with deadly seriousness.

"Diddy! Just _holster_ your weapons and put your hands up!" Samus said.

Diddy blinked, as did Link, as they realized that something was up. Deciding to trust in the plans of their companions, rather than blindly charge, Diddy raised his hands, and Link followed suit after sheathing his weapons…but he still didn't like having to trust in someone he didn't feel earned it.

Diddy heard the sound of movement behind him…and with a surreptitious glance, noticed Meta stirring.

"Excellent," The Commander said, "Master Ridley will be most pleased. Our Coordinator has served us well…"

The Commander flashed a look back to a glass tank placed in front of the exit door on the other side of the massive room. It was initially overlooked by the Smashers because the army of Pirates drew their attention, but now that they were moving closer to finish off the Smashers, the tank was obvious.

The tank was large…about fifteen feet high, with more than half of that occupied by a clear liquid, the bottom part a mess of complicated machinery. Occupying the tank was a massive orange…brain. Yes. A brain. Well…actually, it didn't look like a brain. Not a human one at least. It was more of a brain-shaped blob, without any of the wrinkles or crevices inside a normal brain. It had several large spikes protruding out of it, and turrets were placed around, on and in front of the tank, making any assault…painful, to say the least.

"Mother Brain," Samus said.

"That's the brain?" Diddy asked, "Raichu was right…ew."

"Cease your chatter," The Commander…commanded.

Two rows consisting of twenty total Pirates, with the Commander in the lead started advancing, weapons trained on the Smashers. The remaining twenty remained behind, to protect the brain.

"Any second now," Samus said.

"I don't know what you have planned," Link whispered, "But whatever it is, it better be good."

When the Pirates were within twenty feet of the Smashers they stopped and aimed their weapons at Samus.

"Ridley will be most pleased to hear of your death," the Commander stated.

"I don't know how that's going to be possible," Samus said.

"What?"  
"Well, how is it possible to hear of someone's death…if you died first?"  
Before the Commander could respond…all hell broke loose.

Mario dashed behind Samus, who rolled into her Morph Ball form and slammed her with his hammer, sending her flying at the Space Pirates. Mario then followed her example by using his cape to leap up into the air, splitting their attention and fire between two targets. Samus crashed into the middle of the pack, knocking down a Pirate, while Mario dodged their attacks and responded with fireballs.  
Samus unleashed a Power Bomb, feeling that it was safe with the others far away. The resulting explosion coupled with the close proximity of the Pirates killed four and damaged several more.

Diddy and Link caught on pretty quick, and started throwing Orange Grenades and Bomb Arrows at the Space Pirates as well. Mario's fireballs caused substantial damage, as they seemed to have increased in size, speed and power. Rather than slow baseball sized flames that left small burns, they were bowling ball sized firebombs that incinerated Space Pirates that were hit by more than one.

Samus spun out of her Morph Ball form, kicking away several of the weakened Pirates. She aimed her cannon at one, when a blur slammed into her repeatedly, knocking her away from the others.

"You're MINE!" the Commander told her, snap-kicking her in the midsection.

"Samus!" Link yelled.

"No! I can take him!" Samus said, dodging a laser from the Commander.

"You can take me? Ha! Prepare to die!"

Bario leapt forward and started slashing at the Space Pirates. Link's sword came out, and he started taking on several close range as well. Deciding he would be best suited closer up, Diddy pulled out his peanut guns and waded into the fray, his tail whipping around and guns pelting his opponents. That, combined with Mario's firebombs, had all but annihilated the Pirates…until the other twenty Pirates jumped in.

The exhausted Diddy and Link were immediately hit by lasers and claws, and fell to their knees. The Pirates surrounded the two combatants as seven Pirates distracted Mario with laser shots. The Space Pirates leveled their weapons…just as Bario jumped in from behind and sliced two of them in half. Bario came to a stop in front of Diddy and Link, panting heavily, swords raised defensively.

"Don't worry guys," he said with a wink, "I got this."

Link looked up at Bario in confusion.

"Maybe…I was wrong," he said to himself.

The Space Pirates recovered from the surprise attack…and charged.

Samus sent a missile flying at the Commander who ducked under it, firing lasers back at her. Samus rolled to the side, firing missile after missile. The Commander dodged a few, but two of them hit him in the chest, knocking him back. As he tried to recover, Samus leapt forward and kicked him in the face. He fell backwards, but as he fell, he spun around, knocking Samus's legs out from under her.

"You can't stop the power of the Space Pirate Army!"  
"Oh shut up," Samus said, clocking the Commander in the face with her Arm Cannon.

The Space Pirates charged unthinkingly at Bario, who merely grinned, and sent a pulse of energy into his swords…which started to glow purple.

"Super Stab!" Bario cried out, stabbing both his swords at a speed not even Link could match, the power of the sword strikes cutting through the Pirate armor like butter.

The Pirates didn't stand a chance. Bario cut through eleven of them easily before he got tired…at which point Mario decided to get up close and personal. He slammed down into the group of bad guys, knocking several away. Mario put away his cape and just started punching and kicking. Link and Diddy joined in…but the Pirates, while injured, were persistent, and the fighters were getting tired.

"Agh!" Diddy cried out, as a pair of Pirates landed a good blow on him.

"This is not good," Bario said, panting heavily, "That attack took to much out of-Ow!"

The Space Pirate that shot Bario moved into press his advantage…when his head was suddenly removed.

"What?" Link said, smashing a Pirate in the face with his shield.

"The cavalry of Relish is here!" screamed Meta-Knight, apparently recovered from his bout with Ridley, as he carved through the Space Pirates.

Emboldened by the arrival of their companion, the Smashers rallied, and managed to kill off all of the Pirates…well…not all of them.

Samus got to her feet, dashing away from the Commander and peppered him with Power Beam shots, as he leapt up and ran at her. Blinded, he tried to slice her with his bladed arm-claw thing, but she blocked it with her Arm Cannon, and then punched him in the face. As the Commander struggled to regain his footing, Samus planted her foot on his chest and pushed him over, firing three missiles into his body at the same time.

"Samus," the Commander wheezed, struggling to breathe.

"What?" Samus asked coldly, Arm Cannon aimed at his face.

"If I tell you something…will you let me live?"  
"What is it?"  
"Ridley…does not want your death."  
"What?"  
"He ordered us to capture you and your companions. We were allowed to hurt you…but not kill you."  
"Seriously?" Samus asked, shocked.

"Yes…but I'm ignoring those orders!" the Commander stated, slashing at Samus…when a missile hit him in the face, killing the weakened Space Pirate.

"Moron," Samus said, rejoining the others as they finished off the last of the small Space Pirate army, and she noticed the awakening of their…interesting companion.

"He looks…better," Samus said, referring to the gleeful Meta, who was busy cutting up dead Space Pirates.

"Yeah…" Diddy said, looking back at…wait! Where's Raichu?  
"Guys!" Diddy yelled, "Raichu's-"

"Right…here," a weak voice said.

The others turned in surprise, to see Raichu, barely standing, a few feet away from them.

"Heh…Meta woke me up, screaming about government conspiracies and baked goods. I saw you guys fighting…and tried to help…but that attack I used on Ridley really drained me."  
"Raichu, if we get that healing bad guy dust on you…think it'll help?" Bario asked, concerned for his companion.

"Probably. Without that, I'd need some kind of electrical charge."  
"Well," Samus said, "I don't know where we can find an electrical charge…but I bet if we kill Mother Brain over there, that'll bring that dust out."  
"It's worth a shot!" Diddy said.

"That's Mother Brain?" Raichu said, "That thing is just gross."  
"I know! That's what I said!" Diddy exclaimed.

"So what's the plan of attack?" Bario asked Samus.

"Well…we have to shatter the tank in order to damage the brain, and it's surrounded by those turrets, that will probably start to shoot at us as soon as we get close."

"So…why don't we just stay far away and shoot at it from here?" Link asked.

"Sounds good," Bario said, "Let's try it."

Samus and Link turned towards Mother Brain, who was about 25 yards away, and fired several missiles and Bomb Arrows at it. Immediately the turrets in front of the tank swiveled to face the attacks and fired piercing laser beams, similar to the ones the Space Pirates used, but more powerful, a fact that was evident as the missiles and Bomb Arrows were destroyed before they even got close.

"Well…that didn't work," Diddy said.

"We're going to have to take out those turrets first…and to do that, we're going to need to get close," Samus said.

There were eight turrets on the ground in front of the tank, each one about the size and approximate shape of a fully grown man curled up in the fetal position, although the large gun sticking out of the front of the turrets ruined that image. Two smaller, sleeker turrets were placed on the top of the tank, for a total of ten.

"Right…but we're going to need someone fast, quick and able to cause decent damage," Bario told her.  
"I'll do it!" Diddy said.

"No," Samus said, "You may be fast, but with the exception of those orange grenades, you don't have anything that could break those turrets."  
"What's wrong with the grenades?"  
"They take too long to explode; the turrets could just shoot them. Meta…you might be able to do it…is your sword strong enough the break the turrets?" Samus asked.

"Gravy says okay!" Meta said, twirling his sword around.

"I'll take that as a yes," Bario said.

"It's a me-a Mario!" Mario cried out, lifting his hammer.

"Mario?" Link asked, "Can he do it?"  
"Okeydokey!" Mario said.

"I guess so," Samus said, "Alright, Mario and Meta, destroy the turrets, and then the rest of us will move in and demolish the tank…and kill that stupid brain for the last time."

Mario and Meta nodded…and then ran/flew for the turrets. The turrets began to fire their lasers at the duo, but Meta flew up and Mario jumped away, making the two near impossible to hit.

"Agh!" Link said, "I hate just standing around here! Can't we help them?"  
"How?" Samus asked.

"I don't know…maybe, draw the turrets fire by shooting at them?"  
"No! With them that far away from us, and close to the turrets, we might end up hitting them!" Bario said.

"Yeah, yeah," Link grumbled, "It was just an idea."

Meta and Mario reached the turrets in seconds…and in barely twice that time, Meta had sliced through three, and Mario had smashed four. The eighth turret self-destructed; just barely missing Meta, who, in a bout of insanity had dived for the ground for unknown reasons.

"I saw a quarter! It had the face of my mother's apricot TREE!"

That only left two turrets…the ones on the tank. Mario and Meta turned to those ones…just as they fired. They didn't fire lasers. They fired a large slow moving laser circle.  
"Oh crap!" Diddy said, "I bet those will be hard to destroy!"

Mario and Meta jumped/flew up and destroyed both with a single swing.

"Guess not," Raichu said.

"Alright guys! Destroy that tank!" Bario said, drawing his swords and running at the seemingly defenseless Mother Brain.

"Diddy!" Raichu called.

"What?" Diddy asked.

"Help me over there."  
"What? No! You're too weak!"  
"I'm fine! Just help me!"  
"No! I'm not putting you in danger!"  
"DIDDY! I'm not asking! Help me," Raichu said, his voice making it clear that he would try to get over to Mother Brain's tank…whether Diddy helped him or not.

"Fine," Diddy said, using his tail and hands to help support Raichu as they walk/limped towards Mother Brain.

Since Mario and Meta were the closest to the tank, they were the first ones to attack it. Mario and Meta hit it from opposite sides with their weapons…only to get flung away by an electrical field surrounding it.

"What?!" Samus said, as she and the others got within striking distance.

"I guess we can't physically attack it. Samus, Link, you'll need to use your projectiles-" Bario started to say.

"No," Raichu said, stepping away from Diddy and limping towards the tank, increasing his speed as he got closer.

"Raichu?" Diddy asked.

"Hope this works!" Raichu said, running at the tank.

"What are you doing?!" Diddy yelled.

"Oh…electrical field," Bario said, "That might recharge him."

Raichu leapt at the tank, and was immediately surrounded by electricity, as he absorbed the field protecting Mother Brain, creating a sparking white light. The crackling white light shot out of his body, but then looped back, as if it was being captured by the electric mouse.

"Wow," Diddy said, "I think its working!"

After a few seconds Raichu dropped to the ground, crackling with electricity…and looking better than ever.

"Now THAT felt good." Raichu said.

"Mario?" Bario asked.

Mario nodded, ran up to the tank…and shattered the glass with one solid blow.

"Alright Mario!" Bario said, "Attack the brain!"

Samus and Link nodded and shot a missile and Bomb Arrow at it, while Mario slammed it with a hammer. And that's when Mother Brain opened its eye.

"What?" Diddy said, as a massive orange eyeball with catlike pupils on the front of the brain, fired a purple beam three feet in height and width that vaporized the missile and Bomb Arrow…and continued traveling.

"It can do that?!" Link shouted, dodging to the left as Samus dove to the right, the beam exploding between them.

"Apparently!" Samus shouted back.

Mother Brain started charging up another blast as Meta slashed at it from the side, and Mario hammered it.

"Why aren't they able to kill it?!" Bario yelled, dodging the purple beam.

"They have to hit the eye!" Samus responded, charging up her Power Beam.

"X-RAY!" Meta shouted, diving in front of the brain and stabbing the eye.

Mother Brain shrieked…and then blasted him away another attack.

"How strong is this thing?" Link shouted, preparing to dodge another attack

"Don't worry about it," Samus said, dodging the brain's most recent assault…and shot a Super Missile directly into its eye.

The resulting explosion knocked Mario off the side of the tank he was staying on, and blew Raichu away from the front of the container. Mother Brian let out a massive shriek…and the tank, machinery and all, exploded, creating a smoking shroud of dust, obscuring the Smashers view of their foe.

"Samus," Link asked, "Did you kill it?"

There was a loud clanking noise, although whatever made it was obscured by the smoke.

"No…GET BACK!" Samus yelled, diving away from the cloud of smoke.

Before Bario, Diddy and Link had a chance to ask her what she was talking about, four large blue rings flew at them, mostly missing, but one skimmed across Link's arm, opening up a shallow, but long cut.

"Ow! What was that?" Link shouted, as an inhuman shriek reverberated around the room…and Mother Brain leapt out of the smoke cloud.

Yes, leapt. Apparently, buried beneath the glass tank and folded up in the machinery, the brain was attached to a body. It looked like that of a large bipedal lizard or demonic bird, about twenty feet in height. It was covered in both the orange pulsating flesh of the brain and steel-gray metal. It had comparatively small arms, and large, thick, birdlike taloned legs. Spikes were sticking out where the spine would be on a normal creature, and the head was attached to a long serpentine neck. Also new was the mouth that Mother Brain had developed. It was a small sharp-toothed mouth that constantly dripped purple acid. The eye had gone from an evil orange to a dead white.  
"I take it back," Raichu said jumping out of the smoke cloud, "_That_ thing is gross!"

"Samus?" Bario said, backing away from the beast.

"Watch out for…everything! Aim for the brain!" Samus said.

"Very helpful!" Diddy said, dodging an energy ring attack.

"Sorry, it's the best I got!" Samus shouted, switching to her Ice Beam.

"Alright…here we go," Bario said, running for Mother Brain.

Mother Brain responded by having its eye shoot out thin, dark orange lasers, not as powerful as the ones before, but very fast. Bario was forced to abandon his charge and dive away, while Meta flew up to the brain and hacked away. Mother Brain screeched and jerked its head forward, knocking the small knight away. Samus and Link took advantage of Mother Brain's distraction by hitting it with charged Ice Beam shots, and bomb arrows.

"That thing is slow," Raichu said, as Mother Brain staggered unsteadily on its feet.

"But powerful!" Samus called back, firing again, the massive ice shards smashing into the soft brain matter, "Don't underestimate it!"

Mario and Diddy jumped away from the blue energy rings and orange lasers and launched firebombs and orange grenades into the brain. Raichu, fully recovered, and feeling great, skipped around Mother Brain, zapping it with medium sized lightning bolts shot out from his electricity storing cheeks.

"Wow," Bario said, looking for an opening, "We're killing this thing!"  
"Don't get cocky!" Samus said…just as Mother Brain decided to strike back hard.

It raised its arms and shot out what looked like miniature orange explosions that traveled in a straight line to…Samus and Link. It knocked them over, and burned them, although that wasn't as bad as the small ball it dropped out of its mouth.

"What the?" Diddy said…before the ball exploded into a short circle of fire that spread out and hit him and Raichu.

"Crud!" Samus said, rolling away from another explosive blast, as Mother Brian pressed on the assault, shooting out laser beams, energy circles, fire grenades and orange…explosion thingies.

"Samus! This is too much! I'm going to try it!" Bario said, flipping over a laser.

"Try what? What are you talking about?" Link said angrily, blocking some of the energy circles with his shield.

Bario didn't answer and just ran straight for the machinery enhanced beast, dodging more attacks. When he got within fifteen feet, his swords began to glow purple. After a few more steps, he flung them at Mother Brain.

The swords flew unhindered, and one stabbed into the chest of the creature, the other into the neck. Mother Brain shrieked and jerked around, dislodging the swords. Bario ran forward and dove between its legs, grabbing his blades…just as Mother Brain unleashed its ultimate attack.

It reared back its head, glowing and then shot its brain/head forward, shooting out a massive technicolor beam that charbroiled the ground, and just missed Mario.

"Whoa!" Link said, shooting another bomb arrow.

"I have to stop this thing…hope this works," Samus said, charging up her Ice Beam.

Mother Brain shuddered from another flurry of firebombs from Mario, but still managed to charge up and release another of those massive beams. Mother Brain swept the beam across the ground, skimming across Diddy, and smashing Link's shield into his chest before dissipating.

"OW!" Diddy and Link said at the same time.

"Samus! We have to stop this-" Bario started to say.

"Already on it," Samus responded, shooting out a massive beam of ice from her Arm Cannon that seemed to get larger as it traveled towards the creature. It reached Mother Brain in less than two seconds and surrounded it entirely in ice.

"What the hell was that?" Link shouted, trying to get up.

"That was the Ice Spreader. Combination of the Ice Beam and a whole bunch of missiles."

"That was awesome!" Diddy said.

Mother Brain started to twitch, and the ice surrounding it started to crack.

"Oh crap…alright…when I say go, Link, shoot a bomb arrow, Diddy throw an orange grenade and the rest of you, get ready to attack if this doesn't work!"  
"What…oh man, that things still moving?!" Diddy said, pulling out an orange grenade.

Samus switched over to her Power Beam and started charging it as Link aimed his bomb arrow. Ice flakes started to slough off of Mother Brain as it struggled to break free from its frosty prison. It never got the chance.

"NOW!" Samus said, firing a Super Missile at the fiend.

Diddy and Link launched their weapons as well and all three hit Mother Brain and exploded…shattering it and the ice. Before anyone had a chance to celebrate, the pieces of Mother Brain exploded…into the much appreciated pink healing dust.

The Smashers, cheerful after the hard-fought victory started to walk over to the elevator, which Mother Brain had been blocking.

"So…Samus…it's not over…is it?" Diddy asked.

"No. We still have to finish off Ridley…he's still alive, I'll bet you."

"And I would also bet that Kirby and Falco are alive. Those two are resilient. We just have to find them!" Bario said, plastering a smile on his face.

"Wait…what happened to them? Why aren't they here?" Raichu asked.

"Oh right…you were unconscious for that…" Diddy said, "Well, they fell down an escape shaft with Ridley."  
"Why were they trying to escape with him?" Raichu asked.

"What? How can you-" Diddy started to say, flustered, when he saw Raichu's grin, "Oh, shut up," Diddy said, smiling back.

"You're just too easy," Raichu said, leaping ahead.

Samus shot open the elevator door, and she, Mario, Meta and Raichu were the first ones in. Bario was about to follow when a hand grabbed his shoulder. Bario spun around to see himself face-to-face with Link.

"What do you want?" Bario hissed.

"I'm just letting you know that I still don't trust you…or particularly like you…but you saved my life a couple of times…" Link said, while Diddy stared at something in the far corner of the room, pretending to not see or hear the two as they blocked the door with their "private" conversation.

"Yeah…" Bario said back.

"After we finish off Ridley, and get back Falco and Kirby…we're all going to have a long talk and figure out what exactly you want, and what you're hiding…but until then, I'll work with you…I owe you that."  
"Gee, thanks for your…_generosity_." Bario said, picking Link's hand off his shoulder, as he walked into the elevator, but he turned around before fully entering, "I just want peace and cooperation…and I have nothing to hide," he said.

"We'll see about that," Link growled as he got in as well.

Seeing the way open, Diddy jumped in the elevator, thinking not about what the two were talking about…but about what he saw in the corner. Something blue and glowing…eh, it probably wasn't that important…

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

AN: For any information/news regarding this story, please refer to my profile.


	26. Robots and Psychics

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Twenty-Six: Robots and Psychics…What a world we live in!**

Luigi was cold. He had woken up in some kind of cage, about ten feet square, and soon realized that he was not alone.

"Hello?" he called out, hoping for an answer. He got one.

"Mario?!" a feminine voice called back from the cage next to his.

Luigi jumped and ran to edge of his cage, trying to peer through…the lighting made it difficult to see in the cages, although the center aisle was stunningly bright.

"Princess? Is that you?" Luigi asked.

"Luigi…is Mario with you?"  
"What? No…he's protecting your castle," Luigi said, feeling a tiny stab of jealousy at the fact that Peach's first thoughts were of Mario.

"Oh…where are we?" Peach asked back, trying to see Luigi…the cages seemed to be made out of some kind of metal grating, with holes so small they prevented any mingling of the prisoners.

"I don't know-" Luigi started to say, before a despairing laugh reached his ears. It seemed to come from a cage across from him.

"H-hello?" Luigi asked cautiously, trying to peer into the cage.

"You'll never get out…" the person across from them said, their voice despairing…and young.

"Who is that…Ness?" Peach said.

"Yes…it's me…Ness. Ah ha ha!" Ness said, hints of madness evident in his voice.

"What's wrong with you?" Luigi asked.

"You two…only showed up a day or so ago…but I've been here for weeks. Ah! The things they do to you…they make you see…they make you THINK…" Ness said, before devolving into giggling.

"Ness? Ness!" Luigi said, trying to get his attention.

"Don't bother. That wimps been like that since I got here a week ago," a deep bass voice said, next to Ness.

"Captain Falcon?" Peach asked.

"Yeah. Popo, Nana, Zelda, Marth and Roy are here as well." Falco said, and as each person's name was called, they said hi, in varying degrees of emotion.

"Ness has been here the longest," Marth said, his voice coming from farther down the prison, "A month or so."

Peach thought of the face that matched the voice, and recalled the blue-haired, handsome, if vaguely effeminate master swordsman.

"What's going on? Is this all the work of Bowser?" Luigi asked.

"No. Ganondorf and the Hands are in on this too." Zelda said.

"We think that Master Hand is trying to create a third tournament." Roy said.

"Another tournament? But why?" Peach asked.

"We don't know do we? We never know…and we're all going to DIE!" Ness shouted before collapsing into despondent sobs.

"SHUT UP!" Falcon said, kicking the side of the cage where Ness was leaning on, and causing the baseball-capped short boy to fall to the floor, where he lay curled up crying and moaning.

"Should we do something?" Luigi asked.

"Nah," Marth said, "That guy is just annoying. You just have to ignore him."  
"That's not what I meant," Luigi started to say, when the one and only door to the chamber slammed open, and Ganondorf stomped in, carrying three small creatures…one looked vaguely like Kirby, round, pink and small arms and legs, but had larger eyes. The other two looked like Raichu, only smaller, yellow and one had a much larger head in comparison to its body.

"Is that…Jigglypuff, Pikachu and Pichu?!" Zelda asked in shock as Ganondorf tossed each of them in separate empty cages.

"Yes Princess," Ganondorf growled, "Crazy Hand just brought them in. Soon, the games will begin."  
"Ganondorf! You have gone too far," Peach said to him.

"Get us out of here!" Luigi shouted.

"SILENCE!" Ganondorf roared, the sheer power of his voice knocking everyone to the back of their prisons, "And stay quiet, or your food will consist of what we cleaned out from the **last **occupants of those cages!"

Feeling that their prisoners were suitably cowed, Ganondorf stomped back to the door, and slammed it close, anger emanating from him like a wave. Just as he did so, Bowser popped back through the portal in the center of the room.

"Hey! Ganondorf! Man, you missed it! Those Toads were going like CRAZY! And nothing tastes better than terrified charbroiled…hey…what's wrong?" Bowser said, noticing the angry look on Ganondorf's face.

Ganondorf turned his eyes to Bowser, who was still chewing…something, and answered in a low, furious voice.

"Crazy Hand came in with Mewtwo's prisoners. I brought them to the cages, and M.C. called back Crazy Hand, told me Mewtwo is paying a visit to our friends…and gave us an ultimatum."  
"Us?" Bowser asked.

"Yes, US! M.C. is still furious with you for having Yoshi killed, and he's mad at me for not capturing more," Ganondorf said, quaking with rage.

"Hey! I wasn't able to control that! It was my minion's fault, not mine!" Bowser indignantly said.

"According to reports, that "minion" was a time-displaced **you** from the past, so M.C. is considering you solely responsible for his death." Ganondorf hissed.

"Oh," Bowser said, abashed.

"But he does say your efforts in capturing Ness, the Ice Climbers, and more recently Peach and Luigi, which, when added with Yoshi's death, and Mario's little absence, makes The Mushroom Kingdom, completely defenseless, and you acted accordingly."  
"Really?" Bowser said, quite excited.

"Oh yes," Ganondorf said, with Bowser completely missing the sarcasm, "It's _great._ M.C. is quite pleased with you almost single-handedly handing him the Mushroom Kingdom, which is the world he wanted the most. I on the other hand, having _only_ given him Zelda and Falcon am not held in such favor."  
"What of Mewtwo?" Bowser asked.

"Mewtwo has so far captured five, which is more than either of us and his success in the Pokemon world is also…_pleasing_." Ganondorf spat out.

Bowser started to notice something in Ganondorf's tone, and phrased his next question cautiously.

"What does that mean for us?"

"It means, my friend," Ganondorf said with a twisted smile, "That we have been appointed to round up the last few stragglers. Fox, Game & Watch and D.K. are wanted…NOW."  
"Now?!" Bowser asked, shocked, "But we saved those for last because of how difficult they'd be to get!"  
"Yes, I know! But M.C. wants them NOW, while Mewtwo starts fortifying our defenses, and visits the 'Heroes'."  
"What about K-"

"And Andross, yes I know, apparently M.C. doesn't care about them. He wants US to do it. I am going after D.K. and Fox. You get the honor of G & W." Ganondorf said, walking past Bowser, who stared at Ganondorf in shock.

"But…I hate that guy!" Bowser stammered, as Ganondorf stepped in front of the portal.

"Don't we all?" Ganondorf laughed, "Kong Island!"

Ganondorf stepped into the portal as it changed to a green color. Bowser was most unhappy.

"This is going to suck!"

_**In Ridley's Den…**_

Falco and Kirby quickly panicked upon hearing the haggard breathing of a badly beaten Space Dragon. In a fit of…braveness, the two ran as fast as possible away from the noise…before smashing headlong into a rock-solid wall, that they couldn't see thanks to the darkness of the room.

"Agh! Oh no!" Falco hissed, before he and Kirby spun around…to see nothing.

Well, that's not true. An eerie blue glow, emanating from what looked like radioactive rocks around the walls, floor and ceiling of the room provided a dim illumination for the massive chamber. It just wasn't a lot of illumination and it took the two a while for their eyes to adjust.

Once their eyes did adjust though, they could see Ridley, lying on the ground away from them as various Space Pirates ran around him, causing bright lights to flare up around him.

"What are they doing?" Falco asked, as he and Kirby snuck under a small rock outcropping to stay out of sight. If Kirby answered Falco's question, Falco didn't notice or care.

The only thing they could clearly make out was that the Pirates were also putting the blue rocks by Ridley, but what they did with them was impossible to make out.

"I hope the others get here soon," Falco moaned quietly, not having a good time.

Ridley spread his wings and shrieked, as whatever it was that was being done to him seemed to hurt…hurt very bad…

_**Back to the Heroes…**_

The seven remaining Smasher traveled down the elevator. Although they were physically feeling much better, thanks to the awakening of Meta and Raichu, and the healing from Mother Brain was greatly appreciated…emotions were high.

Most of the others had caught at least part of Link's and Bario's conversation, and knew that things were building up…and that it looked like Link would be the one to spark the flames that split them up. On the entire trip down, the group was separated, in more ways than one.

Mario stayed aloof, and despite his heroicness, he still radiated an aura that made it clear that while he would be polite about it…he would end any conversation started.

Bario, the mysterious swordsman, with the _interesting _name stayed near Meta, who rocked back and forth, for once not flying.

Diddy and Raichu huddled together, with Diddy clarifying what Raichu missed while he was unconscious. Both kept their voices low, as if afraid to shatter the small semblance of peace the group had built.

Link seethed quietly, surreptitiously glancing at Bario, and going over the facts in his head, trying to see what he could see…that the others couldn't.

And Samus…Samus seemed to be working with her suit equipment, and her quick and jerky movements indicated that she was quite anxious.

But before anyone could even think of saying anything to try and patch up the rift growing between them, the elevator stopped and the doors opened.

"Come on guys…" Bario said, still taking his role as unofficial leader quite seriously.

Despite not being a fully together team at the moment, the Smashers knew they still had a job to do: First and foremost was to find Falco and Kirby…hopefully alive, and second was to put a stop to whatever the villains were doing. They were making decent progress on both of those ventures, but they still had a long way to go.

More important was the pressing concern of whatever resided in the next chamber. It didn't take long for them to find out, because as the Smashers were coming out of the elevator a large quantity of small purplish missiles slammed into the ground around them and exploded.

"What the?" Diddy shouted, leaping away from the explosions and pulling his pistols out on…Ridley?  
"What is that?!" Raichu yelled, dashing away from another outpouring of missiles.

"Ridley Robot!" Samus shouted, jumping out of the elevator and firing her own missiles back at the mechanical beast.

Ridley Robot, an awkwardly named creature that looked like an awkward mess of machinery. It was massive, standing twenty feet tall with its body trailing away, reaching thirty or forty feet. It had long, thin looking arms that gave it surprising reach and speed, and possessed a mechanical version of Ridley's snapping head, although it was considerably larger. A large cylinder was placed on its back with a sizable opening, and it was out of that that the missiles were flying.

However while this beast was large and frightening, an interesting aspect about it was that it appeared to be incomplete. Wires and bits of machinery trailed behind the robot, giving it only an upper body, and forcing it to drag itself by its arms to move, an aspect that slowed it down considerably. The final interesting part of the creature was also the only aspect of it that appeared biological. Beneath its glowing green eyes, and positioned snugly on its chest was a container that contained what appeared to be a small fist-sized heart.

The chamber appeared to be nondescript, with nothing save the large side to make it memorable, although since they were attacked immediately, the Smashers had little time to examine it.

"Let me guess," Bario yelled, slashing apart a pair of missiles, "That heart thing is the weak spot?"  
"That's right," Samus said, charging up her Power Beam.

"This should be fun," Link said, grinning as he used his shield to block some missiles.

"Fun is **not **the word I'd use!" Raichu said, as the robot opened its mouth and released several large fireballs that slammed into the arena, splashing some of the Smashers with bits of flame, but missing all of them.

And that's when the Smashers attacked. As Robot Ridley swiped out, catching Bario in the chest, each and every other Smasher present nailed its heart with their ranged attacks.  
Mario slammed it with a bunch of his new firebombs, Raichu sent similarly sized, but not nearly as many electric balls, Diddy hit it with his grenades, Meta launched a flurry of his small electric balls, Link used a bomb arrow and Samus smashed it with a Super Missile.

The container around the heart shattered, and although the robot shot out some green lasers from its eyes, the Smashers managed to distract it long enough for Samus to charge up and hit the heart again. The heart was vaporized, and with the destruction of that, the robot fell apart.

There was a brief moment of shock as the seven Smashers processed two things. First, they defeated an enemy in little more than a minute, while taking minimal damage, and second, there was no healing dust.  
Before anything else could happen, a swarm of Space Pirates piled out from around various openings around the large, albeit bland chamber. Ignoring the Smashers, the Pirates started grabbing chunks of the robot and taking them back to the openings.

"Hey!" Samus said, firing a missile at one of the Pirates, "Stop whatever you're doing!"  
She and the others started to step threateningly towards the Pirates…when a shifting black and purple portal opened up between them and the robot pieces.

An aura of evil washed over the Smashers, and it was clear that whatever was coming through that portal was a being of malice and power on par with Bowser and Ganondorf.

"What the?" Samus said, coming to an abrupt halt as a deep and disturbingly familiar laugh echoed from the portal as the creature traveling between dimensions made its presence known…causing Raichu to stiffen noticeably, as he shifted to all fours and started sparking like crazy.

The reason for this was made abruptly clear as out of the portal stepped a character that was familiar to those that battled in the second tournament. He stood around six feet tall, but floated slightly above the ground, adding a few inches to his height. A long powerful, curved tail whipped behind him, its dark purple coloring sharply contrasting the lighter purple that the rest of his body was, a purple so pale it was nearly white.

He had long thin arms that ended in narrow lengthy fingers…three on each hand. His lower body was built much more powerfully than his upper, with thick legs, like those of a large jumping marsupial. His head sat perched on a narrow neck, and a cylinder of flesh protruded from the back of his head and ended in his upper back, as if to help support his head.  
His head was vaguely cat like, with large wide purple eyes that nevertheless seemed malevolently narrowed, and he had the vestiges of ears that stuck up slightly. He was Mewtwo.   
A character with a complicated past…namely, he was cloned from another Pokemon, but turned on his creators and killed them all, before escaping from the lab he was "born" in. He was approached by Master Hand after the failure of the first tournament and acted as one of the three "Generals" appointed by the Hands…and although he lost against Pikachu, he is still well known as being very strong.

He possesses astonishing psychic powers...which he used to attack his original world after his return from the tournament. He used the personal army of Master Hand, the Wire Frames, and led an assault on Raichu's home town. He chose that town specifically because he was under the misimpression that Pikachu, his defeater, was residing there. When he found out that he was not, he destroyed the village, killing Raichu's fiancé personally in a cold rage.

He let the Wire Frames have essential free reign over the lands while he destroyed town after town…before finally finding Pikachu and his friends. He caught them by surprise, and with increased strength bestowed upon him from the Hands, defeated them easily, and brought them to Crazy Hand. After that he entered a portal and came…to Zebes.

"Mewtwo!" Raichu shrieked, before shooting off a large bolt of lightning at him, before he even finished exiting the portal.

Mewtwo merely smiled and waved his hand…causing the lighting to curve before it hit him and slam into Link, knocking him over. Mewtwo chuckled a bit as he finished exiting the portal.

"That was amusing. I do enjoy it when my enemies take care of themselves," he declared, although no sound came from his closed mouth, with the exception of his laugh. He communicated directly into their minds.

Raichu stopped sparking as he stared at Link in shock.

"Agh! Link! I'm sorry!"  
"Don't worry about it," Link growled, standing up, "It wasn't your FAULT!" he shouted, jumping forward and slashing at Mewtwo at the same time Samus fired a missile at him.

Both attacks missed. The missile came within an inch of Link's nose, startling him, but not stopping him. By the time either attack got close enough to hit, Mewtwo had vanished. The Smashers spent a moment looking around wildly, when Mewtwo's voice echoed out behind them, causing them to spin around.

"Come now? This is the mighty team that has conquered the evils of the Mushroom Kingdom? Destroyed the terrors of Hyrule?" Mewtwo mocked, "I will have to have a talk with Bowser and Ganondorf. The way they were blabbering on about you, I thought you were actually worth noticing."  
"Mewtwo! SHUT UP!" Raichu said, starting to spark again.

"Raichu! Don't do it! He'll just deflect it again!" Diddy said.

"Hmm…the tiny monkey is smart. You'll do well to listen to him," Mewtwo said.

"Why you-" Diddy started to say, angry at the insult, when a cry from Meta stopped him.

"Destruction of the Kitty King!" he screamed, flying at Mewtwo, slashing his sword wildly and shooting energy balls off like crazy.

Mewtwo raised his arm and created an invisible psychic shield, which the balls bounced harmlessly off of, and then when the masked knight got close enough to strike Mewtwo grabbed and flung him into a wall at a high speed using telekinesis.

"Oh, you guys are too pathetic," Mewtwo said, laughing again, his deep voice reverberating in their skulls.

"Oh shut up," Samus said, "Link, Mario and I were in the tournament with you and we all got farther than you ever did."  
Mewtwo growled, and a slight anger clouded his voice.

"That is irrelevant. You never battled me, and I am far stronger now."

"Seriously, Mewtwo…why are you here? It can't just be to fight us and get back at us for doing better than you in the tournament?" Link said.

There was a brief pause as Mewtwo didn't respond. The Smashers stared, astonished that that was the reason.

"Oh man…is that really why you're here?" Diddy asked, shocked at the pettiness.

"Actually," Mewtwo said with a grin, "That's _not_ why I'm here. I'm just here to test you a bit, and let you know that the Hands are watching you. At any time they could come right here and destroy you…but for now, they are too busy. So, I had some time and I came to put you in place. Your battles thus far have been far too easy." Mewtwo said, with his arms crossed.

"Easy?" Bario said, annoyed, "We'll show you easy those battles were! Attack!" he commanded.

Mario, Diddy, Bario and Raichu charged forward. Link and Samus paused for a second…before joining them in the charge.

Mewtwo laughed and sent off a stream of purple-black Shadow Balls, smaller than Mario's fireballs…but there were a lot of them, and they hit like physical blows. While the Smashers paused to dodge the attacks, Mewtwo grabbed and flung them away like he did with Meta, cackling the whole time…except for Raichu who was grabbed and held in place by Mewtwo's psychic force.

"Hmmm…I vaguely remember you," he stated, cold amusement in his voice, "Let's see what fun I can have with you."

Raichu struggled, but the grip holding him was much too powerful.

"No!" Bario shouted, scrambling to his feet.

"Don't even try," Mewtwo said, blasting him back into the others without even a glance.

"Now…let's see how long you last, little mouse," Mewtwo said, using one hand to keep him floating, and then using the other to shoot off nine small Shadow Balls.

Raichu screamed as the balls slammed into his body, feeling like he was being beaten with an iron club …but Mewtwo held him in place.

"Interesting…still conscious? You are stubborn. Let's see how you like being forcibly propelled into walls, shall we?" Mewtwo said, staring intently at Raichu.

Raichu merely panted heavily, and gave no sign that he heard the malevolent psychic master.

"Stop it!" Diddy shouted, struggling to move as Mewtwo was holding them all in place with seemingly no mental strain.

"The stoic strategy…you think that will be effective, little mouse?" Mewtwo mocked, ignoring Diddy and the others.

Raichu managed to lift his head, which was no small feat, considering he was floating six feet in the air, glared at Mewtwo full in the face with a look of pure hatred. If hatred could be measured on a scale of 1 to 10…Mewtwo would be suffering from a class 2 million level of hatred. Raichu then hauled back and spit at Mewtwo.

The spittle landed at his feet. Mewtwo gazed at it dispassionately for a moment before turning his attention again towards Raichu.

"How rude. What have I done to deserve such treatment from you?" Mewtwo said, genuine puzzlement in his expression.

"What do you mean? DON'T YOU KNOW?!" Raichu roared, furious at the fact that he didn't even realize that he had killed his fiancé.

"Shh," Mewtwo said, raising his finger to his mouth, despite the fact that the only noise that came from his mouth was an evil laugh…"No need to tell me…I'll just rummage through your mind!" he declared, before shooting a blinding flash of light at Raichu.

"A-" Raichu started to say, before Mewtwo locked gazes with him.

Both remained frozen for about fifteen seconds, staring into each other's eyes. The frozen Smashers watched in shock, unable to do anything. After a bit Mewtwo smiled and Raichu started to pant faster.

"Ah…that's right. I killed that little rat. That was fun. It was too bad I missed you, I would have enjoyed going through your mind then, while the memory was still fresh, and make you play it in your head over and over again. Ah well…I can start now. The vividness of the memory is starting to fade. If you're forgetting already…I guess you didn't love her as much as you thought you did. Let's see-" he started to say, before an enraged shriek from Raichu caused him to pause.

Raichu's face was contorted into an expression of pure rage, as he shot lightning bolts and clawed furiously at Mewtwo, although neither touched him.

"I seem to have touched a nerve…this will be fun-AGH!" Mewtwo shrieked as a bowling ball sized firebomb slammed into him from the side, knocking him to the ground and causing Raichu to fall.

"What in the?" Mewtwo said, floating back up…to see Mario standing there, palm still smoking.

"How did you break-" Mewtwo started to say, before projectiles from the other Smashers flew towards him, as Mewtwo had lost his psychic hold on them thanks to Mario, who seemingly broke free of it on his own.

Mewtwo twirled around and appeared by the portal, as Diddy ran over to Raichu, who was struggling to stand.

"What's wrong Mewtwo? Why are you running?" Bario mocked.

"Coward! Come back and fight!" Diddy shouted.

"You fools. My goal never was to beat you…just to keep you distracted," he said, as he stepped into the portal, deflecting some more hastily thrown projectile attacks, "And Samus," he called out as the portal and he vanished, "Check the ceiling."

His laugh echoed again as the portal closed around him.

"What did he mean by 'distracted?'" Link asked.

"Look!" Raichu pointed, at where Robot Ridley's pieces were. Well, not anymore. The Space Pirates had taken everything during the Mewtwo conversation and vanished down their tunnels, leaving only a few rusty pieces of jagged metal.

"No," Samus whispered, before turning her gaze towards the ceiling, "NO!" she shouted, running towards the next door, shooting it open on her way.

"Samus? What's wrong?" Link asked, as Meta and Mario started to follow her.

"Samus," Raichu yelled, as he got to his feet, "What's that blue stuff?"

"No time to explain! Get going!" she shrieked.

Surprised by the intensity of her voice the others ran for the elevator. They were soon in and heading down. Meanwhile…the blue mineral that was growing on the ceiling continued to spread…


	27. The Ultimate Something?

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Ultimate…Something?**

The Smashers were tense. Raichu was still shaking from his brutal encounter with Mewtwo, and Samus seemed to be very anxious about something. The others did not know what was going on, and with the exception of Diddy, who was trying to calm Raichu down, they were all making a big effort to not look at Samus.

After about twenty seconds, in which the elevator slowly moved down, and Samus violently attacked…uh…_utilized_ her suit's scanning abilities, whirled around to face Bario, and choked out a word that was a mixture of anger and fear.

"Bario!"

Bario faced her, startled by the tone of her voice, and cautiously responded.

"Yes…? What is it?"

"Master Hand…is he powerful enough to bring back something from the dead?"  
"Like what?"  
"Like…an enemy," Samus said, being deliberately vague.

"Well…" Bario started, curious about Samus's lack of answers, "It depends on the strength of the enemy. The more powerful, the harder to bring back of course. With Crazy Hand helping him, and apparently Ganondorf, Bowser and Mewtwo…I would guess they could bring back anyone…or anything they wish. They just need to know about the thing they're bringing back to life."  
"Great," Samus said bitterly, as the elevator came to a stop.

"Samus? Is something…?" Diddy asked.

"Get ready for a big fight guys…and whatever you do, don't touch the blue stuff. EVER." She said cryptically.

The doors opened. The Smashers poured out, rapidly readying their weapons and were confronted by a dim room that seemed to be only lit by the blue radioactive mineral…at least until they all stepped out. At that time, several things happened within the span of a few seconds of each other.

First, as soon as the elevator opened, and illuminated the passengers, Falco and Kirby noticed them and called out.

"Guys! Hey! You're here! Finally!"  
Second, panels of light stationed around the rocky brown chamber lit up the entire room, revealing large patches of the blue mineral, and a strange protrusion on the ceiling, that looked almost like a dark, closed flower, although it was very large and colored like that of a ripe bruise.

Finally, Ridley and the Space Pirates, who were unaware of Falco and Kirby's presence, were immediately notified of it by the noise they made calling out to their companions. With the appearance of the lights, programmed to come on when that elevator opened, it took seconds for them to find Falco and Kirby…and attack.

While the other Smashers were frozen in shock from the multitude of things happening…blinding light, Falco and Kirby, Ridley and two dozen Space Pirates, Bario analyzed the situation…and acted.

"Attack the Pirates!" he yelled, before charging himself, closely followed by Mario and Meta.

This command was followed by another five seconds of multiple happenings.  
First, Mario and Meta initiated the charge with Bario by shooting off a sizable amount of firebombs and energy balls, which made quick work of the unfortunate Pirates they hit.

Second, the Pirates and Ridley, noticing the Smashers by the door, were momentarily frozen by indecision. Falco and Kirby were closer…but there were more of them by the elevator. Meta and Mario's attacks made the decision for them. The Space Pirates continued on towards the now severely worried Falco and Kirby, while Ridley decided to take care of Samus and co.

At around this time, Samus somehow found the time to mentally analyze Ridley…or more accurately, Meta-Ridley, as his new appearance was decidedly metallic in nature.

He was still his same large self, but his entire body was covered, and supplemented by a silvery gray metal substance. His eyes were a glowing yellow, and his wings seemed even more bat-like, as the membranes were also the same yellow. There also seemed to be a slightly blue tinge to the whole being, but it was hard to see in the bright light.

Third, Samus, Link, Diddy and Raichu all took a little bit longer to react to Bario's command, but when they did they shot off a series of projectiles at Meta-Ridley…but they were too late. With something like a grin, Meta-Ridley opened his wings and took off into the air, and soon he was high above them, as the projectiles impacted harmlessly in the area he vacated.

Bario had gotten close enough to the Pirates to start slicing them up. Falco and Kirby were leaping into the fray with him, and in seconds Mario and Meta joined the melee. The pirates did the best they could, but they were caught off guard. A few slices and shots were all they managed to get off before the brawl was concluded, and the two dozen Space Pirates were considerably more Space Pirate Pieces.

"Thanks…for coming," Falco said to Bario, genuine gratitude evident in his voice.

"Anytime," Bario said with a grin.  
Before they could relax Meta-Ridley shrieked and shot forth a large yellow laser from his mouth. He raked the beam across the ground, and would have hit Samus and Link if they weren't already moving. His attack caused the Smashers around Bario to look up, and although Meta-Ridley was the first thing that attracted their attention, they did notice that there was a lot more blue stuff in this room than it looked like there was before…and then Meta-Ridley fired again, and they had more important things to worry about.

Meta-Ridley paused for a minute between blasting, as he tried to plan…but it was a second too long, as all the Smashers except Bario and Kirby launched their ranged attacks at him. Meta-Ridley attempted to dodge, but between peanuts, electric balls, firebombs, energy balls, missiles, arrows and laser shots, he had no where to go, and was slammed…hard.

However he still managed to stay in the air, and seemed to shrug off the assault pretty quickly…he flew away from the Smashers, causing their second flurry of strikes to miss. However, if any of them thought he was giving up, they were very mistaken.

Meta-Ridley quickly spun around, and from his body small orange balls were falling, or rather flying, at the Smashers. They split up and the balls slammed into the ground where they were with considerable force before exploding into flames.

"Samus!" Bario called out, sheathing his swords so he could run better, "How do we kill this guy?"  
"We have to hit the chest-plate! If my previous encounters with him hold true, it's his only real weak point!" Samus called back, punctuating the end of her sentence with a missile that hit Meta-Ridley's chest, causing him to let out a particularly high-pitched shriek.

"Bario!" Link called out, rolling away from another of Meta-Ridley's red lasers, "You should stay back. You don't have any long-range attacks. Let us protect you!"  
If that came from anyone else, Bario would probably have listened. As it wasn't coming from anyone else, he could quite easily pick out Link's mocking tone.

"None huh?" Bario said to himself, as he raised his hand, "Then what's THIS?!" he yelled, as a dark purple blob appeared in his hand, about the size of one of Mario's original fireballs, but it had no real shape. Bario seemed to concentrate for a moment, and the object became more spherical…actually, it became a perfect roiling purple and black spherical mass.

Bario grinned, and just as Link turned to face Bario after he yelled, Bario launched the ball straight at Meta-Ridley. Meta-Ridley was already flying away when Bario threw it, but the ball swerved in midair and slammed into his chest plate, making a sound like a steel ball, before exploding into small purple fragments that rapidly disintegrated.

"What was THAT?!" Link asked angrily.

"_That_, was something I've been trying to do for a while. A projectile formed with my rudimentary magic skills," Bario said, quite pleased with himself.

"Alright Bario!" Raichu said, before shooting off some more his electrical attacks. Because Meta-Ridley was made of _metal_, Raichu's attacks slightly homed in, as the metal attracted the electricity, and conducted it, causing a fair amount of damage…but the damage was spread out, and not focused on the weak chest-plate.

Meta-Ridley gave his now annoying shriek, and opened up with another laser beam strafe. Kirby was hit by the tail end of it, but other than the searing pain of nearly being vaporized by a laser beam, he wasn't terribly hurt.

Link frowned; he was bothered by Bario's new attack, but he did not have time to dwell on it. Furrowing his brow in concentration he aimed his bow and fired a bomb arrow, something he was rapidly becoming quite good at. The arrow flew underneath Meta-Ridley's raised arm as he was spinning around for another attack, and slammed into his chest-plate. Before Meta-Ridley could react another of Bario's magic balls and three of Mario's firebombs crashed into that area as well.

Those firebombs certainly were interesting. Larger and considerably faster than the fireballs, Mario seemed to have no problem making them and shooting them off rapidly and with considerable accuracy. In 20+ years of adventuring though, it isn't really a surprise that the mustachioed plumber could do that…the guy has amazing stamina.

Meta-Ridley curled his wings around his front, folding his head down as well. Despite that, the metallic space dragon continued to stay in the air through unknown means, although he was no longer moving. A few more projectile attacks hit the wings, shredding them, but Meta-Ridley didn't seem to care. Meanwhile, Samus charged up her cannon…

"Samus…what's going on?" Link asked warily.

"Guys…I would recommend you move…NOW!" Samus yelled, punctuating her sentence by leaping to the right…just as Ridley opened his wings wide and twenty missiles, similar to Samus's poured out from protrusions on the metal body.

They flew rapidly and homed in quickly, about two or three missiles per Smasher. Fortunately, the Smashers were used to listening to each other, and since none of them harbored any ill will towards Samus, none of them had any problem moving when she said. The majority of the missiles missed, while those that didn't were deflected harmlessly.

Before Meta-Ridley could follow up with another attack, Samus fired a Super Missile at him. He did not dodge it and it slammed into his chest-plate, knocking him from the sky and causing him to fall the forty feet to the ground, landing on his back with a resounding crash and causing a large quantity of dust to kick up which obscured his status.

"Is he dead?" Diddy asked, watching the dust cloud warily.

"No way. Everyone, get ready…he's going to be mad now," Samus said warningly.

The others nodded and prepared their weapons, and, having clustered together during the aerial battle, they spread out a bit, so that one attack couldn't hit them all. In addition to readying his sword, Meta-Knight also readied a snappy one-liner.  
"In the grand scheme of things, squishies should never be squashed," he said, with a surprisingly serious tone.

A sudden sharp noise came from Meta-Ridley's position, as the space dragon leapt to his feet and whipped his massive wings out, sweeping away the dust. He looked for a moment at his shredded wings, and then folded them back…before charging for the Smashers.

"FIRE!" Bario, Samus and Link yell at the same time.

They fire, with all of the Smashers shoot their projectiles, including Bario's new magic balls, and Kirby's shockwave. The attacks didn't seem to slow Meta-Ridley down, as he slammed right into Samus and before Link could react, his metallic tail smashed into him, knocking both Samus and Link back a ways.

Meta-Ridley started to turn around, but Mario dove under his whip-like tail, and slammed his hammer into his weak chest-plate. Meta-Ridley shrieked and back-handed Mario with one of his powerful arms, sending the poor plumber flying.

Meta and Bario took advantage of Meta-Ridley's temporary pain, and the two swung their three blades at Meta-Ridley…and none of them connected. Meta-Ridley blocked both of Bario's with his arms, and Meta's was blocked by Meta-Ridley's tail. The two warriors struggled to overpower the massive creature, who merely looked bored.

Meta-Ridley soon made it obvious that his physical strength was far greater than Bario and Meta-Knight, as with barely any effort he pushed the two away. Glancing up, he saw Kirby, Falco, Diddy and Raichu starting to surround him, so he fired off a laser beam in their direction, forcing them to scatter.

The metallic villain seemed pretty content, and was quite sure of his eventual victory…until a screaming Link came at him from the right and stabbed at his chest. Meta-Ridley quickly moved his arm to intercept the blow…which allowed Bario to slip past his other arm and strike Meta-Ridley's weak spot with both of his swords. The force of the metal hitting metal knocked Bario back, and with a cry of anger and pain, Meta-Ridley slashed him with his left arm.

As Bario fell back, bleeding from the long, but shallow cut on his chest, Meta-Ridley started to turn his attention to Link, who had leapt back, and was starting to circle around him. Meta-Ridley shot his tail to the side, but Link flipped over it. Meta-Ridley snarled and slashed out with his right arm. Link moved his shield and deflected most of the blow, but the sheer power of the massive beast was enough for Link's arm to go almost numb. Plus, merely being close to Meta-Ridley made Link feel nauseous for some reason.

Meta-Ridley noticed Link's new weakness, and gleefully stomped towards him. Link backed away; barely able to hold up his shield…when Meta-Knight came from between Meta-Ridley's legs…and stabbed the chest-plate, while crying out.

"Emirp Diortem!"

Meta-Ridley shrieked and spun around, knocking Meta into Link with his folded wings…right into Samus's fully charged Super Missile. It hit home, exploding on the chest plate. Meta-Ridley flashed a hate-filled glare at Samus, and a quick laser beam which forced her to dash out of the way as he fell to the ground…and lay motionless.

There was a minute of stunned silence as all of the Smashers watched their fallen foe. A few twitches, and a slightly rising chest indicated that he was not playing dead, but that the chest-plate, which was probably guarding his heart and other vital organs was severely damaged. It appeared that the battle was over. However, Samus did not seem like she was ready to let down her guard.

"I guess we won!" Falco said, clearly very happy, and relieved with being rejoined with the others.

"It would seem," Samus said, while she charged up her cannon.

"Going to finish the guy off?" Link asked, while looking at the barely moving Meta-Ridley.

"Yep," Samus answered.

Meta-Ridley managed to twitch his head over and glare at them. He let out a short strangled screech, which died down soon, as though Meta-Ridley was too weak to sustain it.

"Let's hope this kills you…for good," Samus said, aiming her cannon at Meta-Ridley's face.

However, a bright blue pulsing light attracts her attention, and that of the other Smashers. Turning upwards, they see the blue stuff flashing brightly, especially around the weird protuberance on the ceiling.

"Samus…Can you tell us what that stuff is?!" Falco asked, starting to feel frightened…and slightly queasy.

"It's Phazon! It's extremely radioactive…don't touch it, don't even get near it!" Samus shouted, apparently having difficulty maintaining her calm.

"What?!" Bario said, "Phazon?! I thought you destroyed the source of that stuff!"

"I did! But I guess…wait…how'd you know that?" Samus asked, confused.

"Not the time to worry about that…something's happening!" Diddy said.

Indeed, something was happening. The protuberance on the ceiling, which just so happened to be directly over the beaten Meta-Ridley started to open up…the purplish "petals" of the mass opened up, and as something started to come out, the Smashers all backed off…as a literal river of Phazon fell forth and landed on Meta-Ridley.

Temporarily blinded by the bright blue liquid and feeling decidedly sick being near it, the Smashers start to run away from the radioactive mass that obscures there seemingly defeated foe. The Phazon waterfall soon stopped pouring and the Smashers squint, trying frantically to see what had become of their opponent.

There was a roar from Meta-Ridley, and the beast stood up, seemingly suffering from no pain, as a blue glow surrounded him. The last of the Phazon seemed to be sucked into his body, and he spread his yellow wings wide as he glared at the Smashers, and then fired a bluish beam at them.  
The Smashers managed to avoid the attack, but the amount of damage it did to the flooring made it obvious that it was considerably more powerful than his previous beam attacks.

Despite the apparent boost in power, Meta-Ridley was still incapable of flight, and although he had not changed in size or appearance, the Phazon made him seem larger and more intimidating. However, while Meta-Ridley watched the Smashers struggle to organize themselves against him, blue Phazon armor appeared, looping over both of his large shoulders, and creating a large thick chunk of armor over his weak chest-plate, protecting him from further harm.

"Argh!" Samus said, firing a missile at Meta-Ridley that bounced off his new Phazon armor and exploded near the ground, "Not this crap again!"

"I'm going to take a guess and say you already fought this guy like this!" Link shouted, shooting a bomb arrow that Meta-Ridley dodged easily.

"Yeah…the only weak spot of this guy is the chest-plate," Samus said dodging a second laser beam from Meta-Ridley, "But that Phazon is protecting it. I don't have the equipment I need to destroy it now…I don't know what to do!"

Meta-Ridley did not seem like he was going to give them time to think about their situation…because he leaned low to the ground, and then dashed forward at a high speed, right at Link and Falco. The two managed to dodge the attack, and Meta-Ridley slammed into the wall behind them, face-first, and was temporarily stunned.

Meta-Ridley fell back, his head slightly askew as he tried to recover from his poorly executed attack.

"Hit the armor!" Samus said, trying to regain control of the situation, following her own advice with a trio of missiles that impacted the side of the Phazon armor.

The others followed her lead, and soon energy balls, electric balls, magic balls, bomb arrows, orange grenades, laser shots and firebombs were all flying at Meta-Ridley. Most of the damaging projectiles hit the armor near the center, and rest exploded or whizzed by, just missing their intended target.  
Although the armor was incredibly durable, it started to crack under the barrage…but before the Smashers could finish the job, Meta-Ridley came to his senses and leapt away from the attackers, coming down hard about twenty feet away from their cluster, creating a bluish, almost electrical shockwave that spiraled out, knocking all of the Smashers over, except for Mario who leapt over it, and Meta who was flying.

Meta-Ridley did not give them another opportunity to damage him…he opened his mouth and released large orange balls of flame that slowly traveled to the Smashers who were struggling to get over the painful affects of the shockwave.

Samus noticed the balls flying towards her and the others, and as Mario and Meta both destroyed one, she and Link took aim and fired missiles/arrows at them, causing them to explode prematurely.  
The prone Smashers than got to their feet with varying degrees of ease, and faced Meta-Ridley…who shot a burst of flame at Samus that caught her in the chest and sent her flying into the wall, where she slammed with a sickening crack and fell to the ground with a sharp thud.

"Samus!" Link shouted, with a strange pained crack in his voice, "ARGH!"

He turned towards Meta-Ridley and ran at him, his sword and shield raised.

"Link! NO!" Bario called, but Link ignored him.

Meta-Ridley breathed another stream of fire, but Link ran through it, using his shield as a battering ram to avoid the majority of the attack. Link moved so quickly that his shield slammed into Meta-Ridley's jaws before he had a chance to close them. Meta-Ridley recoiled in pain as Link stabbed the Master Sword at the crack in the armor, the power behind his rage-driven blow widening the crack.

He struck multiple times, heedless of the of the other Smashers firing their projectiles, or of Kirby running towards him, his only thought was of killing this thing…this monster that had killed-

"AGH!" Link shouted as Meta-Ridley whipped his long tail around, catching the powerful Hyrulian swordsman in the midsection and flinging him away with an almost casual strength.  
Meta-Ridley turned his malevolent attention towards the other Smashers who regarded him warily. Despite the fact that his reptilian face was incapable of facial expressions, he seemed to produce an evil grin…that quickly ended when the sneaky Kirby ran up and slammed his wooded hammer into Meta-Ridley's cracked and weakened armor.

Screeching in pain and fear, Meta-Ridley grabbed Kirby and threw him at Falco and Diddy, who both tried to catch the airborne puffball, and all three ended up in a tangle on the ground. Bario, Meta and Raichu pummeled Meta-Ridley with their respective projectiles, and more flames flew from his mouth as he tried to stop them…just as a second hammer hit his Phazon armor…causing the weakened material to shatter.

Meta-Ridley froze, shocked, as Mario slammed him in the face with enough force for him to step back, stunned. Mario moved forward to complete the job, but like Link, he missed Meta-Ridley's tail, which whipped out of nowhere, catching the heroic plumber by the legs, and sending him tumbling away.

Meta-Ridley than created two large blue orbs in his hands and raised them up, as if gathering energy. The standing Smashers threw their projectiles at his chest-plate, but the Phazon had appeared to have reinforced that section, as while Meta-Ridley winced from the attacks, he didn't seem to feel the same amount of pain…that, or he was just tougher.

After a few seconds, he seemed to have determined that the energy balls were charged and shoved them down to the floor, where they created several small fast-moving pillars of energy. The Smashers mostly managed to avoid it, although Raichu suffered a glancing blow and Bario was skimmed by one of them. After a few more seconds, the pillars dissipated and Meta-Ridley started to prepare his next attack.

He was stopped however, when Link, still lying mostly on the ground from where he was thrown, shot his Hookshot out. The attachment buried itself in the chest-plate, and with a mighty yank, the Hookshot pried apart the two sections of it…exposing Meta-Ridley's large red oval like heart.

Before anyone could react to this…a large yellow and fast moving Super Missile flew forward and exploded directly on Meta-Ridley's heart, vaporizing it. Meta-Ridley struggled to breath, but not even an ocean of Phazon could keep his damaged body alive. He let out one last strangled gasp, before exploding into the pink dust that healed everyone, and also seemed to halt the growth of the Phazon, that was now covering most of the ceiling, and was starting to move towards the walls.

"Samus?" Link said in shock as he sheathed his weapons.

"What? You didn't that that could finish me off did you? I told you, I fought this guy before, and beat him, and that was by myself. With all of you guys here, it was easy," Samus said, trying to make it seem light, as the others started to gather near the door out of the room.

The Smashers chuckled a bit. While not their most difficult fight, none of them would describe it as easy. They stopped laughing though, when Samus started mumbling and tapping her visor. She kept that up for several seconds before turning her attention back to the others, who were looking at her with puzzled expressions.

"What?" she asked.

"What were you just doing?" Diddy asked.

"I was just checking something…turns out that my ship is close enough for me to contact it. I was just directing it to head over to this planet, in case we need it."  
"Your ship?" Link asked.

"Yeah…the one I travel in. I used it to pilot to a portal to get to the Mushroom Kingdom."  
"Hey guys…that Phazon stuff is moving again!" Raichu said.

He was correct. Whatever the pink dust had done, its affect had worn off. Samus shot open the door to the elevator, and the Smashers hurried inside. Samus was the last one in, and as she did, she turned to look at the strange object on the ceiling where all the Phazon had come out of, as if expecting to see something…but nothing happened, and soon the elevators started moving.

The Smashers were in higher spirits now that Ridley/ Meta-Ridley had been destroyed, and they had been reunited with Falco and Kirby…but now Bario had questions to answer from both Link and Samus…


	28. Prime Peril

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Twenty-Eight: Prime Peril**

_**A Lush and Beautiful Jungle…**_

A dark purple/black portal opened up and deposited Ganondorf, in all of his black armor and malevolent grace. He turned slowly around, taking in his surroundings, which were quite visually appealing. Rather than evoking a positive emotion in the Thief King, the beauty of the area caused him to frown, and his gaze became so furious that it would kill lesser creatures.

The surroundings he was in were stunning. Tall, healthy palm trees flourished, with thick watery leaves, standing over four times the height of Ganondorf. Large juicy fruit, ranging from bananas to oranges covered their tops, and the sky was a glorious blue. Smaller plants flourished near the ground floor, and small birds chirped happily in the upper leaves of the palm trees.

The jungle wasn't wild however. The palm trees grew all over, but there was a section of reasonably straight clear ground, about fifteen feet wide and very long that started far away from where Ganondorf was…and ended at a tall tree house.

The tree house was built on a massive tree that was considerably thicker than the surrounding trees, and the house itself was about the size of a medium sized cabin. Past it, the pathway continued, spreading out into other clearings that led to other, similar houses.

Ganondorf cared little for the pretty surroundings, or the other houses. He marched forward, heading straight for the tree house, and with every step his mood darkened.

Well before the evil bearer of the Triforce of Power managed to get to the tree-house, something confronted him. A small blue creature with large buck teeth and a strangely long and flat tail burst out of the trees and ran towards Ganondorf at a surprisingly fast speed, despite its short and stubby legs.

Ganondorf eyed the creature angrily, as if irritated that such a lowly being would dare come towards him. It came to an abrupt stop after it bonked its head into Ganondorf's knees. After shaking its head it looked up at Ganondorf and squealed and chattered at him. Ganondorf frowned, but appeared to understand the creature, as he responded.

"No, M.C. has demanded that I take care of that oversized ape. You go back and tell K. Rool to worry about himself. With Diddy in their group, they're probably going to want to come here, and if everything goes well D.K. will be gone…which means they'll be heading for him. Got it?" Ganondorf said, making it very clear that if the creature, which happened to be a beaver-like being known as a Gnawty, didn't "get it" he would MAKE it understand.

The Gnawty squealed in fright, and as quickly as it came, it vanished into the trees.

"I hate dealing with other's grunts," Ganondorf grumbled before continuing his march to the tree-house, this time uninterrupted.

He came to a stop in front of it, and craned his neck to see the top. He could hear rustling inside the tree-house, but he wasn't sure if it came from the person…or monkey, that he was looking for. He looked at that the slats that were obviously designed for climbing up to the tree-house, but Ganondorf didn't feel like wasting the time, and decided he didn't need the element of surprise.

"Hey! Donkey Kong! Get your fat, lard-filled ass down here!"  
There was a moment of silence after Ganondorf's booming voice finished echoing. In fact, there were several silent moments. The birds flew away, and the trees seemed to shrink back in fear. No noise came from the tree-house until a loud bellow echoed out and something brown, big and fast jumped out of the tree-house and landed surprisingly gracefully in front of Ganondorf. Donkey Kong was here.

"Uh! You! Donkey know you! You BAD! Donkey no have donkey!" the large muscular red-tie wearing ape said, apparently misinterpreting Ganondorf's donkey statement, and his small eyes were narrowed in anger. His short legs were tense, while his long muscular arms ended in tight fists.  
"Yes, Donkey…I guess I am bad. But that doesn't matter. Either you come with me peacefully…or I beat the crap out of you and you come with me only partially coherent. The choice is yours."  
"Donkey no come with you! You bad! D.K. SMASH you!" D.K. yelled.

"Hm…not nearly as intelligent as your small friend are you?" Ganondorf asked.

"Eh?! Diddy?! You know Diddy! Tell D.K.!"  
"Will you come with me if I tell you where your mangy friend is?" Ganondorf asked.

"No! Tell D.K. or he CRUSH you!"  
"Fine. I was hoping you'd say no. I _really _want to hurt something."  
"D.K. hurt you! You go SQUISH!"  
"Squish, crush, smash. You certainly have a one-track mind," Ganondorf let out a feral grin and cracked his knuckles, "Don't give up too quickly," Ganondorf said…before charging at D.K.

_**An elevator on Zebes…**_

The Smashers were quite nervous. Although Ridley/Meta-Ridley was killed, as was Mother Brain and a fair amount of Space Pirates, Samus still appeared nervous, and an elevator was taking them to something new. Since this elevator was transparent, they could see through it that the Phazon was inside the shaft as well, although it had fortunately not penetrated the actual elevator.  
After a few minutes of awkward silence while someone tried to figure out something to say, Falco, still slightly giddy from being reunited, pointed out something strange.

"Hey guys…is it just me…or is this elevator going UP?"  
It took a while for everyone to get his meaning, as they were quite distracted…but after they all looked around it was soon obvious that the elevator was indeed, traveling in an upwards direction.

"Samus?" Diddy asked, hoping that she would know what was going on.

"What? We're going up, I don't know what that means!" she exclaimed, and despite her denial, her tone made it very clear that she knew what was coming.

"Samus. Ridley is dead, and there's that weird Phazon gunk everywhere. What is going on?" Link asked.

Samus turned away.

"I…don't know."

"Samus!" Bario said, determined to keep the group together, "You DO know. Now EXPLAIN."

Coming from anyone else, Samus would have been angered about being given an order…but Bario was different. Too different. There was something she was supposed to ask him…

"Samus?" Raichu said, making him the fourth person to say her name in as many minutes.

"Metroid Prime," Samus said.

There was a long awkward pause, and the others started to wonder if that was all she'd say.

"Metroid Prime is next. That Phazon can cause rapid and unstable mutation in creatures, and Metroid Prime is a Metroid that has lived in the stuff."

While Samus spoke, her voice was a simple monotone, as if the only way for her to explain was to not show any emotion.

"At least that's what I thought. Later I realized that Phazon came from an actual planet that vomits up asteroids made out of Phazon that fly through space. In the asteroids are massive worm like things called Leviathan Larva. After the asteroid hits a planet and starts to infect it, the larva chooses a creature native to the planet and gives it massive amounts of Phazon. This causes it to become obscenely more powerful, like Meta-Ridley did."  
"That's nice and all…but why are you so worried? We killed Ridley, even with that goop all over him, and despite his metal armor. How could this Metroid Prime be worse?" Falco asked.

"Because it's also absorbed a fair amount of Space Pirate technology, giving it sophisticated armor and weaponry in addition to its original, formidable defenses. And there are…other reasons…" Samus said.

"How do you know all this?" Link asked.

"Because…I killed Metroid Prime before…three times."  
"Really?" Diddy asked, "I mean, K. Rool never seems to give up, but we never killed him. Are you sure?"

"Quite. Actually, it might be more than three…I was so sure it was over, that horrid monstrosity was finally DEAD!" Samus said, slamming her hand on the side of the elevator, as it came to a halt.

"Samus. There's still something you're not telling us," Bario started, his voice understanding, but commanding, "But now is not the time. Let's just hope that we can get through this…"

The doors opened, and the Smashers piled out…into a chamber of horror.

The Phazon had covered most of the ceiling and the upper half of the walls, and was slowly but surely spreading. Fortunately the floor remained mostly untouched, but there were small pools of Phazon spread haphazardly around the room.

The rest of the room was massive as usual, although it seemed smaller. This might have been due to the fact that it was an oval-shaped room with rounded sides, making the whole thing seem smaller than the more rectangular rooms. The dark rock and blue Phazon also provided an eerie contrast.

But the thing that drew the attention of the Smashers was located at the back of the room, hanging from the ceiling.

It was a massive black oval-like object that hung from a thick black tentacle shaped thing. So astonished by this bizarre and out-of place creature, it took a minute for the Smashers to notice something else different with this chamber.

It was Samus who noticed it, as she was less fascinated by the creature hanging from the ceiling, and trying to hide her dread over what was going to happen she scanned the chamber, and saw something that did not bode well.

"There's no exit door!" Samus shouted.

A quick scan by the others revealed the accuracy of the assertion, and a suddenly suspicious Falco spun around and saw something equally unpleasant.

"Hey guys…the door is…gone."  
It took a moment for his words to sink in, but once they did the others spun around and saw that again, the assertion was accurate. Phazon had apparently engulfed the door to the elevator and now the blue mass blocked their only escape route. Unconsciously the Smashers backed away from the foul gunk, before turning and aiming their weapons at the being on the ceiling that must have been Metroid Prime.

"Looks like we're not leaving till we kill this thing," Bario said.

The thing appeared to have realized that it was not alone, and after its red eyes opened from its center, it uncurled itself from the ceiling, revealing that the "tentacle" was in fact six close-together long and spindly legs. It dropped to the ground with a loud thud, flipping over in midair and its many legs spread out its weight efficiently enough for it to stand.

Metroid Prime really did not look like any of the Metroids previously faced. In fact, it looked like a massive six-legged spider thing, with a large body ending in a pointy, cone-like head. It was a dark color, but its body wasn't entirely smooth as divots and rivets riddled the creature.

It stood around twenty-five feet in height, but its constant bobbing caused the height to move around a bit. Additionally it had several large fangs in the front, below the high-set eyes, further reinforcing the spider image.

Upon seeing the Smashers Metroid Prime reared back and shrieked, before all the rivets and the joints changed to a vaguely yellowish color.

"Samus? What's it doing?" Falco asked, aiming his laser gun.

"Don't shoot!" Samus said, but she was too late. Falco shot off a blast, which hit the lower part of the creature's body…and bounced back, zinging in between Falco's legs, almost impacting a very important part of his body.

"Whoops," Falco said, slightly stunned from the closeness of his failed attack.

Metroid Prime looked warily at its opponents and shifted from foot-to-foot. It seemed to recognize Samus, and was unwilling to make the first move. Apparently it didn't notice Falco's attack.

"Because of the Space Pirate technology, this creature can block most types of special attacks, and because of the extremely thick armor, pretty much all melee attacks are useless," Samus explained.

"Then how do we hurt it?" Diddy asked.

"When it sets up its defenses, it can only attack with one type of beam, and that element can slip through and hurt it, but only right by its eyes. So right now…it can only be hurt by the Power Beam!" Samus punctuated her statement by dashing to her left, side-stepping over a small puddle of Phazon and firing uncharged Power Beam shots rapidly.

Most of the shots caught Metroid Prime in its weak spot, and the great beast shrieked with more rage than pain. It reared back, and a mouth-like hole flipped open on its underside, from which it unleashed a large yellow beam that missed Samus by inches and scored a deep hole in the wall.

Metroid Prime shrieked again as a charged shot of Samus's slammed into it. Thinking they had caught on to her plan the other Smashers spread out and started shooting their projectiles. Regrettably most of them exploded or shattered uselessly on the creature's armor, while others, like Bario's magic balls, Meta's energy balls, Raichu's electric balls and Mario's firebombs were reflected back, and they had to dodge to avoid their own attacks.

"Guys!" Samus said, evading another Power Beam laser, "You can't hurt it…just back off before it notices you!"  
She was too late. Although their attacks caused essentially no damage, Metroid Prime was aware of their existence, and casually fired two yellow balls of energy from holes behind its head. They slowly floated towards Link and Raichu who attempted to avoid them at first, but soon realized the attacks were homing.

Link and Raichu fired, a bomb arrow and an electric ball respectively, at the balls, destroying them. Unfortunately the yellow balls exploded when they vanished, knocking the two fighters back and hurting them.

Right around that time Samus managed to slam Metroid Prime in the face with a Super Missile. Letting out a particularly pained shriek the beast turned around…and carved a tunnel through the rock wall across from the entrance, quickly vanishing through its makeshift escape route.

There were several moments of stunned silence as the Smashers processed the escape of the creature. It was Falco who broke the silence.

"Samus…what the hell just happened?!"  
Samus answered slowly, "I think…it ran away."  
"Well no duh!" Falco said, "But what do we do now?"  
"The only thing we can do," Bario said, "Chase after it!"  
The others nodded, even Link, and they ran for the tunnel, noticing that it sloped upwards. They powered up the not to gentle slope for about thirty seconds before coming to an almost identical room, save there appeared to be more Phazon. Metroid Prime was there as well, only now the joints and rivets had changed to a bright white.

"Ice vulnerability," Samus said, eyeing the creature as it bobbed around. "Watch out for its attacks…they can freeze you now!"

The others nodded and attempted to distract the creature with their projectiles, dodging their own attacks. Metroid Prime seemed to not care about the attacks, until a few Ice Beam shots managed to slip through, the other attacks helping to prevent Metroid Prime from avoiding them.

It screeched and then charged forward quite fast, almost knocking over Samus, and as it spun back around it hit Meta with the side of one of its legs, stunning the insane swordsman.

"Agh! Sumas Krad!" Meta shouted as he rolled away from Metroid Prime's large stomping legs, an action that was repeated by the others as they backed off from the dangerous beast.

It opened its mouth again and fired a large white beam. It narrowly missed Bario, but froze the section of the floor behind him. As Bario moved away from the slippery floor his foot touched the edge of a nearby Phazon puddle. Immediately a static like noise penetrated his ears and he jumped away from the puddle in pain, as its radiation level was so high it was like touching lava. His leather boot almost appeared to be smoking.

"Be careful!" Raichu said, shooting a ball of electricity at Metroid Prime and then avoiding the subsequent rebound.

"Little late, but thanks!" Bario said, shooting off a pair of magic balls.

While the other Smashers distracted Metroid Prime, Samus managed to hit it in the face with a fully charged Ice Beam. It shrieked and leapt back, before dashing forward again, hoping to squish the Smashers. This time they managed to dodge and get back to the original hole where they continued their assault.

Metroid Prime released two ice balls that floated slowly. Seeing them, Mario and Raichu blasted them well before they were in range, although sharp shards of ice flew out of the ensuing mini explosion, cutting a few of the Smashers.

Before Metroid Prime could attack again, Samus hit it in the face with her Ice Spreader, completely encasing the creature's head in ice.

"Now! Hit it with everything!" Samus shouted, switching to her Power Beam and charging.

The Smashers obeyed and the projectiles increased in speed and power, with Link and Diddy firing their explosives as Metroid Prime shivered and shook, trying to break free of its icy prison.  
Just before it could escape Samus slammed it with a Super Missile, shattering the ice, and apparently severely damaging the powerful beast…as it turned around and burrowed up again.

"Samus," Link said slowly, as if tired, "How tough is this thing?"  
Samus didn't answer at first, but as the others headed for the second upward sloping tunnel she turned back to Link.

"We're weakening it…but we've got a long way to go."  
With that Samus led the charge up the tunnel. It took them about forty seconds to get up there, forty long seconds.

When the Smashers reached the top they discovered that they were in a nearly identical room as before, but with even more Phazon surrounding it. Metroid Prime's sub-color was now a light violet.

"Wave…but I don't…" Samus started to say, before turning to Raichu, "Raichu! It's vulnerable to electricity now! Hit it!" Samus said, before dashing away and firing multiple Power Beam shots.

"What?" Raichu said, confused.

Metroid Prime thought that the damaging attacks would be coming from Samus again, and it ignored the other Smashers and fired a powerful purple beam at Samus that skimmed past her leg, shooting miniature bolts of electricity up and down. Samus grunted but continued to attack, although she now favored her left leg.

"Raichu!" Bario said, who was following Samus's lead and attempting to distract the powerful beast, "You need to hit it between the eyes!"  
Catching on Raichu fired four fast moving electric balls. They covered the ground quickly and two hit the unprepared Metroid Prime in between the eyes. The other two missed and bounced harmlessly away.

Metroid Prime was hurt, but not badly. It was perplexed however. That attack did not come from Samus. Turning towards the Smashers it tried to figure out which one had attack it, but was unable to as Raichu had moved and the other Smashers were firing their projectiles.  
Irritated, Metroid Prime fired another electric beam that missed Bario and fizzled out against the opposite wall. A bolt of lightning from Raichu zapped it hard, and turning again it tried to find its new assailant.

Raichu had dashed away already, and all Metroid Prime saw were Falco and Kirby who were trying to repel it with laser shots and shockwaves, neither of which were causing any actual damage. Metroid Prime then released two electric balls which started to home in on Mario and Kirby, but a few quick shots by Falco and Samus caused those attacks to miss.

Metroid Prime then charged forward, knocking Kirby, Falco and the nearby Link around like small toys. It then spun around, shooting off another electric beam, this one hitting Mario in the chest and sending him sizzling into a puddle of Phazon. With a cry of extreme pain Mario leapt up, parts of his body smoking.

Raichu maneuvered, trying to get a good position, but a series of missiles similar to Samus's shot out of the back of Metroid Prime and flew at the Smashers. They did their best to dodge them, but the speed and unexpectedness of the attack caught them off-guard. Raichu just barely managed to dodge one, and deciding that he need a bit more power, he started to charge.

Spotting the electrified mouse the others did their best to increase their distractive powers, and caused so many attacks to fly at Metroid Prime that it was almost blinded. Unfortunately they were a bit overzealous, and enough attacks came back to damage and knock down Falco, Diddy and Meta, and a quick missile attack caused Bario, Samus, Mario and Kirby to go flying.

Soon only Raichu was left standing, his small size and the protectiveness of his companion keeping him up. Metroid Prime fired an electric beam at him, hoping to finish him off…but it got the opposite affect as Raichu effortlessly absorbed the attack…and then retaliated in kind, boosted with the considerable power of Metroid Prime.

Shrouded completely in electricity Raichu flew at Metroid Prime before it could blink and slammed headfirst so hard into the creatures skull that it actually staggered back…and then Raichu unleashed all the electricity he had stored up, and what he absorbed directly into Metroid Prime.

The process was over in seconds, and a dazed and drained Raichu fell to the floor, narrowly missing a puddle of Phazon. Metroid Prime stood, motionless and smoking as the other Smashers looked on in shock…and with an almighty bellow Metroid Prime ran at them.

They rolled out of the way in various degrees of athleticism and Metroid Prime continued unhindered…and carved a new tunnel upwards.

"Get it!" Samus yelled, wasting no time in running up herself.

The Smashers followed, although by now they were getting quite tired, and Metroid Prime was still a powerful foe. Raichu needed to be helped by Diddy, and the close proximity to the Phazon was making all of the Smashers feel quite sick. It took them a full minute to reach the next chamber, which fortunately had no Phazon on the floor, although it covered the walls and ceiling.

Metroid Prime attacked as soon as the first few came over the lip of the tunnel. Sporting a new black and dark red color scheme, it blasted a large red beam that skimmed over Mario and Samus's heads before slamming into the rock behind them with a resounding crash.

Mario and Samus rolled to opposite sides of the tunnel and the other Smashers came running up as well, firing what they could to distract it. Metroid Prime attempted to release two large red balls, but they were shot at and they exploded close enough to Prime to damage it a bit.

"Fire!" Samus yelled out, shooting off a useless missile, "its weak point is fire!"

Mario caught on instantly. Flipping over some missiles launched by Prime he fired five firebombs, and each one slammed into Prime's face, knocking it back. Mario then dropped to the ground, and started to jump again when Metroid Prime ran at him, ignoring all of the other Smashers and skimmed him as Mario was jumping, knocking him off course and causing him to land roughly on the ground.

Metroid Prime spun around and launched off a stream of missiles again. Seeing an opportunity, Falco dove under the missiles flying at him, jumped up at Metroid Prime…and Fire Falco'd it in the FACE.

Prime shrieked and stepped back, and Falco dropped to the ground and ran out of the way. It launched another beam attack, followed by more missiles, but this time Kirby ran over, ducked under the beam, and with the top of his head smoking he ran up to Prime, jumped up, and turned into a large ball of fire which flew into Prime's face, causing it to shriek again and swipe with one of the smaller legs near its mouth, hitting Kirby and sending the lightweight flying.

"Wow," Diddy said, "I didn't know Kirby could do that."  
"Do what?" asked Raichu, who had been watching Mario get up and start shooting again.

"Turn into a flaming ball."  
"He did what?" Raichu said, before he and Diddy dodged some rebounded energy balls from Meta.

Meanwhile Prime was weakening. Mario had good aim and was fast, and the armor that appeared impenetrable was weakening with every hit it took. Desperate, Prime used a desperation attack.

It shot out a green glowing beam from two of its mouth parts. The beams hit Mario and acted almost like a tractor beam…they dragged him closer to Prime. He struggled to get out, but the beams were tough, so deciding to take advantage of the situation, Mario poured on firebomb after firebomb into Prime. As Mario got closer Prime opened its mouth…it was apparently going to try and hit him at point-blank range.

A second before that happened; Mario's last firebomb seemed to hit a critical point, causing the beams to dissipate. Free, Mario backed off, but held back on his next attack. Prime began to shudder, and before any of the Smashers could react, the creature collapsed in on itself, apparently dead.

Before anyone could rejoice at their apparent victory however, they noticed the black armor was becoming a blue puddle of Phazon…and out of it floated a similarly colored creature.  
"NO!" Samus shouted, firing at this new, Metroid Prime.

It looked far more like a Metroid now, and although it was still big, without the armor Metroid Prime had shrunken considerably. It had six long thick tentacles and what almost appeared to be a face.  
Samus's shots hit the creature, but the missiles seemed to cause minimal damage. Letting out a high-pitched shriek Metroid Prime slammed the ground with its tentacles, creating a large ring of fire that spread out, hitting Samus and knocking her back into the nearby Raichu.

"Samus!" Link yelled out, firing some bomb arrows that exploded upon touching the creature, "What's going on?"

"This is the core Metroid Prime! Kill it! Kill it NOW!" Samus said, surprisingly panicked, before charging up her Power Beam.

"You heard her," Bario said firing three magic balls that crashed into Prime, "ATTACK!"  
No time was wasted, as attack after attack flew at Prime. Fortunately, unlike its previous form it was not nearly invulnerable, although it was still a force to be reckoned with. After a few seconds, the creature vanished.

Stunned, the Smashers stopped firing. After a second Samus realized what had happened and yelled out a warning…too late.

Metroid Prime reappeared by Kirby and Diddy, and slammed the ground, creating the fire ring. They tried to avoid it, but it was too fast, and the two heroes were sent flying, burned and hurt. Beneath the creature, a puddle of Phazon formed.

However its reappearance placed it close to Meta and Link, who were just on the edges of the blast. While Prime seemed to pause to assess its situation the two sword users ran/flew for Prime, hitting it before it could react.  
Both swords cut deep, and before Prime could retaliate, they spun around, slashing it again. Angered and in pain, Prime slammed the ground, forcing Meta and Link to suffer the same pained fate as Kirby and Diddy, before vanishing again.

The Smashers scanned the area carefully, but the location of Prime was impossible to determine…until it appeared right by Samus.

It attempted to do its fire ring attack again, but Samus managed to leap over the initial strike, only to get smacked down with a tentacle. Before Prime could get in the last attack, Mario jumped over and slammed it with his hammer, causing the floating creature to dip.  
Before it could recover, Samus smiled beneath her helmet…and fired her Super Missile at point-blank range, sending Metroid Prime flying until it skidded to the ground where it disintegrated into a puddle of Phazon.

There was a moment of stunned joy, as the Smashers thought their trial complete…but that was quickly halted when the puddle that was Prime began to bubble and expand.

"No," Samus said in shock and denial, "No! NOOOO!"  
Whatever she was afraid of was happening…as the Phazon that was Metroid Prime took on a familiar form…


	29. The Darkness of the Hunter

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Darkness of the Hunter**

_**Back in the jungle…**_

Donkey Kong started the battle, immediately charging for Ganondorf. Ganondorf merely grinned and jumped over the simple attack…but quicker than he would have thought possible Donkey's arm shot out and grabbed Ganondorf's leg. With a roar of rage Donkey hurled Ganondorf into a palm tree hard enough to make the tree crack.

Ganondorf dropped to the ground with a loud thud, but before Donkey could attack again, Ganondorf dashed forward and planted his fist into the ape's stomach, sending him flying.  
D.K. grabbed onto a tree trunk an instant before hitting another tree and used his momentum to swing around and fly back at Ganondorf, feet-first. Ganondorf side-stepped and tried to kick at Donkey as he hit the ground, but the big ape was already moving away.  
The two stared at each other warily, before charging again. Ganondorf's fist became enshrouded in purple flame and he punched at Donkey faster than before, but Donkey's arm had a longer reach and his punch connected solidly with Ganondorf's face, knocking the shocked warlock off his feet.

Ganondorf was tougher than he looked though, and considering he looked pretty tough, that was rather impressive. As soon as he hit the ground he rolled and swung a massive booted foot sideways that slammed into the giant ape, knocking him down as well.

Donkey attempted to repeat Ganondorf's move, but the Gerudo was already flipping onto his feet and leaping into the air. Donkey Kong flipped back to his feet, but not quite as gracefully…just in time for Ganondorf's purple, flaming leg to slam into his chest, knocking the big monkey into a tree where he fell to the ground with a loud thud.

Ganondorf smirked and started to walk towards the motionless monkey.

"That ape was far easier than I thought he'd be…he must have been slacking since the last tournament."  
However Ganondorf soon regretted those words when Donkey Kong sprang up and with a look of fury spun rapidly around like a top, with his large arms outstretched, right towards Ganondorf. The evil Gerudo wasn't expecting it and was brutally slammed multiple times before escaping the primate tornado.

Ganondorf recovered quickly, and a series of dark magic balls flew at Donkey. He dodged most, but one skimmed past his leg, causing him to trip. Ganondorf snap-kicked Donkey in the side, but the ape rolled with the blow and slammed his massive palms into the ground, creating a shockwave that knocked Ganondorf back.

Ganondorf growled and created more magic balls, but D.K. yanked out what looked like a hollow log and slammed Ganondorf in the chin with it before shooting three coconuts from the log that flew into the Gerudo's face. Ganondorf cried out in shock and pain, but jumped over the subsequent coconuts.

Donkey Kong grinned and started to track Ganondorf, firing often, but he dodged the shots fired and responded with some more of his magic balls, forcing Donkey Kong to dive for cover.

When Donkey Kong attempted to hit Ganondorf again, the Gerudo had moved faster than Donkey had anticipated and kicked the coconut gun out of his hands. Irritated Donkey dealt Ganondorf a might back-hand and then started whirling his massive arm around.

Seeing a chance to end this Ganondorf shook off the pain he was feeling and focused his energy into his fist. It began to glow a sinister purple, and with a mighty yell he thrust his arm forward…at the same time as Donkey unleashed his punch.

Both fists connected and the force behind each one would have been enough to crush the skull of any normal being…but these beings didn't even seem to notice. Both pushed with all of their strength, and Donkey Kong's monkey muscles seemed able to match Ganondorf's dark magic powered ones, with neither seemingly able to overpower the other…until Ganondorf gathered his mystical strength as well as his physical.

The purple flames on Ganondorf's fist flared up, and went from being merely a harmless show…to being extremely painful. Donkey could feel the flames burning his flesh, and Ganondorf started to push him back. Donkey attempted to strike with his other hand…but he was too late.

With a loud grunt of effort Ganondorf shoved forward and a blast of mystical energy slammed into the ape, sending him crashing to the ground. Donkey started to get up as Ganondorf walked towards him, but unfortunately a swift kick from the Gerudo's booted foot sent the primate tumbling into consciousness.

With a self-satisfied smirk Ganondorf punched the air in front of him, the purple flames opening up a portal. With a casual disregard for the well-being of the ape, Ganondorf grabbed him by the leg and threw him in.

"That was a fun waste of time…" Ganondorf muttered, before following his unconscious foe.

Someone had seen the whole fight however…and they weren't happy…

_**In the depths of Zebes…**_

Events for Samus and the rest of the Smashers were not going very well. The planet they were on, Zebes, had been infested with a wide variety of dangerous creatures…ones that Samus had killed in the past. One of the most dangerous creatures, Metroid Prime, had fallen to the skills and teamwork of the Smashers…but now it was taking a new form.

The new form did not look anything like the original alien armored spider, nor did it look like the six-tentacled Metroid that it became after its armor was destroyed. No…it looked nothing like its original forms now…unfortunately, the form it was taking was all too familiar…even to those who had never seen this creature before.

The reason for that was because, in a sense, the other Smashers HAD seen this form before…because the shape Metroid Prime was taking, was that of Samus's.

Well, not entirely. The form had a similar body shape, although the armor was an eerie dark blue, and the shoulder pads looked like porous blue sponges. The feet of this…Dark Samus were humanoid, and clawed toes were visible, and its arm ended in clawed fingers. The visor was considerably narrower, and glowed with an inner light. Other than these strange differences, the being before them looked very much like Samus…arm cannon and all.

This Dark Samus aimed her cannon at Samus, but did not move beyond that. Samus repeated the gesture…and after a moment, waved at the others to back off.

"What?" Link asked, quite confused.

"This thing absorbed one of my old suits and some of my DNA…it's very powerful, and I don't want you guys to get in the way!" Samus shouted.

"Hey! Are you saying we suck?" Falco asked angrily.

"No! I just...feel that I have to do this…I have to finish this thing off," Samus said, but despite her pleading tone, only Bario seemed to understand.

"Fine. If that's what you think…but if you look like you're going to lose, we're jumping in."  
"You can't be serious! We have to help!" Link shouted at Bario.

"No!" Raichu yelled, "She **does** need to do this by herself…I get that."

Diddy nodded, and the two of them, plus Bario, Meta and Mario backed away, until they were well away from Samus and her dark doppelganger. Falco and Kirby seemed conflicted, but eventually followed the majority.

"Samus! You can't expect me to just…abandon you!" Link said.

"I can take care of myself! Just…stay out of this!" Samus yelled.

"But…" Link started, before Dark Samus slowly turned to look at him. The creature's invisible gaze seemed to pierce Link, and with a shudder he nodded his head at Samus and turned and walked to the others…and the battle began.

Dark Samus struck first, firing blue balls of Phazon from her cannon as soon as Link joined the other Smashers. Samus side-stepped and responded with her own Power Beam balls. Dark Samus evaded those just as easily as Samus avoided her attacks.

Dark Samus moved fairly quickly…although part of that may have been that she floated a few inches off the ground. She glided quickly around Samus, firing balls of Phazon. Samus, while incapable of floating, could move quite fast anyways and managed to dodge most of the attacks.

The two continued this back and forth shooting, neither able to really do any damage, and eventually they upgraded to missiles. Both Samus and Dark Samus started shooting their slightly homing missiles at each other, and although they couldn't fire them as fast, because of their tracking capabilities both of them ended up taking some hits.

The battle appeared pretty even, and the Smashers didn't know whether to root for Samus, or just jump in. Dark Samus didn't seem to like the way the battle was going and started to charge her beam. Samus responded by charging hers, but Dark Samus fired first, shooting out literally dozens of Phazon balls in a scatter shot. Samus was hit by a few, as they were so spread out it was impossible to dodge…but because they were spread out, she didn't take a lot of damage. Samus then responded by shooting a Super Missile that slammed into Dark Samus's chest, knocking her back.

Dark Samus seemed to let out a deep growl, but no sound actually came forth from the radioactive being. She leapt into the air, and stayed there, floating about seven feet in the air, and her arm cannon seemed to glow a bright yellow. Samus's eyes widened and she dived to the right, just as Dark Samus fired a Super Missile. The attack missed, but the explosion sent Samus rolling.  
Samus continued the roll as she saw Dark Samus fire a second Super Missile, and then sprang up, switching to her Ice Beam and began shooting that beam at her dark nemesis. The ice balls seemed to hurt more than the Power Beam shots did, and Dark Samus soon created a bright blue sphere around herself, which dissipated the attacks.

Dark Samus then curled herself up inside her sphere and it tightened around her. Samus just barely managed to dive away from Dark Samus as she crashed into the ground where Samus had been standing, creating a massive crater. The sphere Dark Samus had been using for protection vanished, and she uncurled herself and stood up.

They stared at each other, neither moving nor attacking for twenty seconds…as if gauging each other. After twenty seconds, they both nodded as if understanding something, and then they charged at each other.  
Dark Samus's floating ability gave her a high kick, and it would have hit Samus in the chest if Samus hadn't anticipated it and side-stepped. Dark Samus tried to correct her move, but the momentum carried her too far, and before she could attack again, Samus slammed Dark Samus over the head with her arm cannon.

The only reaction Dark Samus seemed to show to that was that she dropped to the ground. Samus thrust her cannon out again, but rather than hitting Dark Samus with it, who was already moving to dodge, she swept it in front of her, shooting small bursts of flames out that hit Dark Samus.

Dark Samus again took the blow, but didn't really seem hurt, and then dashed forward, slamming Samus in the stomach with her shoulder. Samus let out a low grunt of pain, and then hit the floor. A brutal kick from one of Dark Samus's clawed feet left deep scores on Samus's torso section of armor, and she rolled away, desperately trying to avoid continued pain. Unfortunately Samus rolled right into a missile from Dark Samus.

The missile hit right in the side of her helmet. She immediately stopped moving and lay still. A strangled gasp came from Link, and he started to move forward, but a hand from Bario stayed him.  
Triumphantly, but cautiously, Dark Samus slowly approached Samus, cannon aimed to finish her off…but a sudden sweeping kick from Samus knocked her dark self down, and Samus followed that up with four Ice Beam shots as she leapt to her feet.

Dark Samus shuddered from the impact…and then vanished. Startled Samus looked wildly around…only to get hit in the back by a Phazon ball. Samus stumbled forward, and then spun around and fired three missiles in different directions…but none of them connected.

Samus cursed, remembering that when Dark Samus performed this irritating little stunt earlier Samus had a visor capable of tracking her…only problem was that the only visor Samus had was the old Echo Visor…which should ALSO be able to track her invisible foe! Samus cursed her own stupidity and flicked it on, just as Dark Samus narrowly missed with another attack.

The Echo Visor turned the world that Samus viewed into a mixture of black and white. Things moving created vibrations…or echoes, and those vibrations were visible as white ripples. Scanning the area allowed Samus to spot her foe quickly, and hit her in the face with an Ice Beam shot.

Dark Samus immediately became visible, and Samus switched off her Echo Visor so she could see normally. Dark Samus and Samus started charging their beams, and at the same second released…Samus shot her Ice Spreader and Dark Samus fired a thick blue laser beam of pure Phazon. The beam shattered the wall of ice and continued, albeit weakened, until it hit Samus. She flew back, but as she hit the ground she started charging again.

Dark Samus fired some more scatter shots, but Samus tried to ignore them…and fired five missiles at once. They homed in on Dark Samus, but the evil fiend raised a blue shield of Phazon that deflected the attacks and sent them tumbling harmlessly into the ceiling.

Dark Samus then went into her Morph Ball form, and activating her form of the Boost Ball, flew at Samus. Samus leapt over the attack and switched to the Power Beam, hoping the faster shots could hit Dark Samus as she bounced off a wall and rolled back. Samus side-stepped and fired numerous shots, but only a few connected.

When Dark Samus came back Samus side-stepped again, but her foe changed direction impossibly quickly and slammed into Samus's legs, forcing her to her knees. Unrolling Dark Samus then unleashed a high kick that caught Samus under the chin and knocked her to the ground. Dark Samus then prepared to attack again…when Samus's Super Missile slammed into her chest.

Dark Samus flew back, stunned and hurt as she hadn't even noticed Samus was charging. She took a step forward, preparing to attack again, but suddenly collapsed. Dark Samus writhed on the ground in apparent pain.

"What's happening?" Link yelled to Samus.

"Dark Samus is powered by Phazon…when she takes a lot of damage it becomes unstable, and she either dies or…"

Samus was abruptly cut off as Dark Samus leapt to her feet…looking a little bit different. The armor appeared to be more transparent, and a skeletal face looked through the now clear helmet. Strangely, the nucleus from the core form of Metroid Prime was visible in the head of this slightly changed Dark Samus.

"Mutates…" Samus said, finishing her sentence.

Dark Samus seemed to shimmer, and then she was moving obscenely fast. Samus tried to track her, but Dark Samus's slightly new form seemed to give her considerably more speed. Samus was pummeled repeatedly by Phazon blasts, before she even had the option to defend.

Samus shot several missiles at Dark Samus, but the ones that got close enough were deflected by a Phazon shield and Samus was forced to avoid her own attacks. Samus then started firing Power Beam shots, knowing that though they were weak, they were her only attacks that were fast enough to hit Dark Samus. Unfortunately, although they did connect…a few times…Dark Samus seemed to mostly ignore the attacks, as she dashed forward again and sent Samus flying with a well-placed kick.

Samus staggered up, and Link moved forward, sword raised. Bario didn't stop him…Bario took half a step forward as well, but a call from Samus stopped the both of them.

"No! I can take care of this by myself! Stay out of it!"  
Link started to respond, but Samus rolled into her Morph Ball form and sped towards her foe. Dark Samus attempted to move out of the way, but Samus activated the Boost portion of her ball form and shot forward, clipping Dark Samus…and leaving behind several Morph Ball bombs.

Dark Samus didn't notice as she was trying to track Samus, but when the bombs exploded Dark Samus was knocked back, with small tendrils of smoke leaking out of her person. Slightly angered Dark Samus turned back…just in time to shoot a powerful Phazon blast at Samus an inch before she Boosted into Dark Samus again.  
In the smaller and more streamlined form of the Morph Ball Samus skidded pretty far from the blow, and popped out of the form in a daze. Before Dark Samus could take advantage of the dazed Samus however, the Power Bomb Samus managed to drop before being hit exploded, and the resulting explosion sent Dark Samus flying.  
Samus managed to get her bearings back around the same time as Dark Samus managed to get up from the surprise attack. Samus fired some missiles at Dark Samus, but her nemesis created a large sphere of Phazon energy around herself, and the missiles exploded far before they reached Dark Samus.

Dark Samus than released a series of blue Phazon blasts from the sphere that arced up and flew at Samus. She dodged them and they created dangerous puddles on the ground. Dark Samus repeated the attack…and Samus remembered what she did last this happened.

Samus started charging up her arm cannon. Pointing it at the Phazon blasts coming from the sphere, the small vacuum like capabilities of the charging dragged the beams in, combing the Phazon temporarily with the Power Beam. After absorbing the attacks, Samus aimed and fired a massive blue and yellowish orange roiling beam of energy that penetrated the shield and slammed into Dark Samus, sending her flying until she hit the ground and skidded to a stop by the opposite wall.

Samus aimed carefully at Dark Samus, panting slightly from the fight, but she knew that Dark Samus didn't have much left in her. It was essentially over. At least, that's what Samus thought until Dark Samus's hand clawed the side of the wall…the wall that was covered in Phazon.

Samus fired a missile, realizing too late what was happening, but Dark Samus managed to erect a shield. Gathering the Phazon from the wall, she stuck out her arm cannon and blue Phazon lightning shot from it and her other hand as she began to absorb all the Phazon in the room.

"Damn! KILL HER!" Samus yells to the others, firing missiles like crazy.

"Finally!" Link said, as the others began shooting their own projectiles.

Unfortunately Dark Samus used the power she was drawing in from the Phazon to increase the strength of the shield. When the Smashers continued attacking, Dark Samus widened the shield, turning it into a powerful Phazon blast that sent all of the Smashers to the ground.

As they struggled to get up Dark Samus finished absorbing the Phazon. Her form had changed again. It was much more streamlined and organic looking, with the visor and suit becoming a darker blue. It was also opaque again, hiding her actual physical features. Phazon lightning crackled around her, like she could barely contain her power. Basically, she looked a lot deadlier.

The Smashers managed to stand up and array themselves around Dark Samus, and she looked at them with contempt. Gathering the Phazon energy, Dark Samus created another large sphere of Phazon around herself…and shot straight up, plowing through the ceiling and creating an absolutely massive hole.

The Smashers stared at the hole in the ceiling for several seconds in shock, before they moved beneath it. They gazed up…and up…and up. The hole seemed to create a tunnel all the way up to the top of the planet. They could see the glimpse of an orange-ish sky, with a tinge of blue. The top was not as far up as would have been expected…the last elevator had been leading up, and during the whole battle with Prime the Smashers had been traveling up…but the top of the planet was far too high for even Meta or Mario to fly up, let alone the rest. To further their impossible situation the Phazon that Dark Samus had absorbed was creeping back into the chamber. Things looked very bad.

"Samus…what's going on?" Raichu asked.

"Just as I suspected…the planet has become infected with Phazon. Soon the entire planet will be a radioactive mass that will spread to other planets, until the whole galaxy is composed of this radioactive junk…and Dark Samus will rule it all. Clearly she expects us to die here."

"Won't we?" Diddy asked, "What can we do?"  
"There is one thing…" Samus said, hitting a button on her suit.

"What are you doing?" Falco asked.

"Wait for it," Samus said.

Several seconds passed. Samus stopped any questions the others might have with a raise of her hand. Shortly before they got REALLY nervous, a series of loud explosions drew their attention to the hole. They quickly took a startled leap back as something seemed to be coming down. Worried that it was Dark Samus, several of the Smashers raised their weapons.

"Don't fire! It's my ship!" Samus yelled, as indeed, her ship came into view from the tunnel that it had widened with its explosives. Apparently she had used her suit to call it down.

Samus's ship was certainly impressive. It was reasonably large, and had a sleek style and shape, with the top half of the ship an orange similar to the orange of Samus's suit, and the bottom half a black that contrasted sharply with the orange. Combined with the way the viewport of the ship was shaped liked the visor of Samus's helmet, the ship looked very much like a stretched out, streamlined version of her helmet.

The ship came to a gentle floating stop in front of the Smashers and extended a hatchway. Samus headed towards, but stopped when the others didn't follow.

"What's wrong now?" Samus asked impatiently.

"I…don't like that," Link answered nervously.

"You never see a spaceship before? Where you from man, the Middle Ages?" Falco asked.

"You've been to where I live! Hyrule! The most advanced thing we have there is bombs!" Link answered angrily.

"Link! Don't worry about it! You'll be far safer in the ship than out of it!" Samus told him.

"That's not saying a lot," Link said, looking at the encroaching Phazon.

"Samus…what do you plan to do?" Bario asked.

"I plan on getting us in this thing, flying out of here, and killing Dark Samus. If memory serves, killing her will stop the spread of Phazon…or possibly make the planet explode."  
"Oh." Bario said. "Sounds good to me!"  
Nodding the others followed Samus in the ship, with various degrees of reluctance. Once in Samus immediately got to a chair located by the viewport and hit several buttons arranged in a complicated manner on a large control panel. The hatch retracted.

The others tried to spread out, but it was obvious the ship was designed for one person. The inside of the ship was a clean sterile gray, but in the aft section of the ship, past the small cockpit was what looked like a cargo bay, where a bed and other housing necessities were located, and that was where most of the Smashers gathered, since it was the least cramped area.

"Alright…this is going to be close," Samus warned the others, yanking back on a lever and flicking some switches. Responding to her commands the ship lifted off the ground a little more and pointed itself at the hole. Several of the Smashers seemed nervous, but Falco, who had considerable experience piloting advanced spacecraft was watching intensely, not the tunnel that Samus was piloting the ship up, but the way her hands moved across the dashboard, and seeing what switches did what.

Link of course was absolutely terrified, and had to look away, while Diddy and Raichu stuck close. Meta babbled incoherently, and Kirby seemed slightly paler. Mario, with his many experiences didn't seem too nervous about the flight, but was fingering his cape. Bario for some reason had his eyes closed and was muttering under his breath.

It didn't take long for Samus's powerful ship to get out of the tunnel, and with the exception of a slight bump against the side it was a smooth ride, and once the ship was out, Samus straightened it out so they could get a look at the planet. Perhaps it would have been better if she hadn't done that.

The terrain was frighteningly familiar to Samus. The chamber they were in must have been one of the cleaner areas, as nearly the entire planet was a poisonous blue. Phazon coated Zebes, and massive blue tentacles waved around. As the Smashers watched, several of them crowding forward in shock at the terrible scene, they saw the Phazon move like a living creature and cover portions of untouched ground.

"This is bad…I had no idea it got this bad…" Samus said in shock.

"What do we do?" inquired Diddy.

"Same thing…find Dark Samus and kill her," Samus said, starting to fly over the dangerous planet surface, carefully avoiding the tentacles.

"Where'd she go?" Raichu asked.

"I think she's supervising the infection of the planet, so she'll probably be right where the largest part of untouched planet is, which is right…here!" Samus said, using a complicated scanner that apparently only she and maybe Falco could understand.

She turned towards that area, and Link brought up a pressing question.

"Samus…my incredible fear of this flying deathtrap aside, how are we supposed to fight Dark Samus…we can't go on the surface of the planet…can we?"  
"It's not a deathtrap!" Samus said, hurt.

"Sorry…but seriously…what are we going to do?"  
"Well, this ship does have some weapons systems…but it's not really designed for pitched combat against something as small as Dark Samus…and you're right. Even my suit can't protect me very well against Phazon…if any of us landed on the actual planet we'd die."  
That seemed to sober the Smashers up a bit, and they were quiet for a while as they tried to figure out the conundrum. And that was when Falco brought up an even bigger concern.

"Can't Dark Samus absorb Phazon?" he asked. At Samus's slow nod, he continued, "Then can't she absorb the Phazon…on this ENTIRE planet?"  
The others seemed taken aback…that would seem to give Dark Samus unlimited power…but Samus quickly dispelled those fears.

"No. She can't draw on too much or she'll become too unstable. She's mostly made of Phazon now, but too much could cause her to mutate into a formless and harmless blob. The amount she absorbed down in the chamber was close, and probably almost pushed her to her limits. She's probably using some now to increase her speed. I doubt she could really utilize any more. She is beatable."  
"More so now," Bario said, opening his eyes and hands. A purple sphere seemed to come out of his hands and go through everyone and out of the ship, where it formed into the shape of the ship, conforming to about six feet in every direction.

"Bario? What did you do?" Link asked angrily.

"I created a small energy field around the ship. I've spent enough time around Phazon to understand it a bit and this field should reduce Phazon based damage. It's not perfect, but it should help."  
"T-thanks," Samus said, slightly surprised.

"Yes, thanks," Link snapped, "But still! How are we supposed to fight Dark Samus, when we can't even touch the ground!"  
"Well that depends…Samus…do you still want to try and take on Dark Samus alone?" Bario asked.

"I'm no fool," Samus responded, narrowly avoiding a tentacle, "I beat her and she changed the rules…so I'm going to accept your help. Why, any ideas?"  
"Well…there are two of us who don't technically have to touch the ground," Bario said…before turning to…

"Meta-Knight!" Diddy said in surprise.

"And Mario!" Raichu yelled in shock.

"Of course!" Falco said.

At his name Meta snapped to attention, his sword held to his…head/body in a type of salute.

"Ylim Afg Nok!" He said cheerfully.

"It's a me-a, Mario!" Mario stated heroically, clipping his cape on.

"Well…that solves that problem," Samus said, "But that still leaves seven of us on this ship, with a very powerful and small target running around out there…unless," Samus trailed off before spinning around in her chair and locking gazes with Falco.

"W-what?" He asked, startled.

"Can you pilot this ship?!" Samus asked.

"What? M-me?" Falco stammered.

"Yes you! Can you pilot my ship?"  
"Well…it's bigger than my Arwings…but," Falco stopped talking and examined the controls.

"Can you or not?" Samus asked impatiently.

"Yes. Your ship is more advanced than the ones we use, but the controls are the same pretty much."  
"Excellent," Samus said before getting out of the chair and walking to a tube by the side of the cargo bay.

"Samus? Where are you going?" Link asked.

"Agh! No one's piloting!" Raichu yelled, dashing towards the control panel before they plummeted to the ground and died.

"Stop!" Samus commanded.

Raichu stopped.

"I set it to hover, we're fine. I am going to the top of the ship to help Meta and Mario fight Dark Samus."  
"The top? Won't you fall off when Falco gets it moving?" Diddy asked.

"No, I can set my suit to stay magnetically attracted to the ship, I'll be fine."  
Samus continued walking towards the tube, which seemed to be a small elevator that led to the top of the ship.

"Samus! How will I get to Dark Samus?" Falco asked, slipping into the command chair.

"No need. We're right above her. Come on Mario and Meta," Samus said, hitting a switch by the tube. It opened up, and it was just big enough for the three to pile in, as long as Meta flapped by the top. Samus hit another button and the tiny elevator carried them quickly to the top.  
"Great…this is going to be fun," Falco said, feeling the controls.

"You do know what you're doing right?" Link asked nervously, looking at the control panel.

"On a scale from one to ten…I have no idea. I'm kind of guessing here." Falco said.

"Just think of it as a learning experience," Bario said, trying to maintain calm.

"I would rather skip this part of the lesson," Falco answered nervously.

"Bario…I know this is probably a bad time, but I'd really like to talk to you," Diddy said.  
Bario nodded, and the two of them went towards the back of the cargo hold, while Falco looked at them pleadingly.

"Great. There go two people with opposable thumbs."  
Kirby cheerfully wandered up.

"What…you want to help?" Falco asked.

"OK!" Kirby answered happily.

"Fine, grab this thing here," Falco said gesturing to a joystick located by a screen that showed the same image as the viewport. The only difference was the targeting reticule on it.

"OK!" Kirby said, grabbing it.

"Oh…you don't have fingers," Falco said, waggling his own feathered digits.  
"I do…what do you need them for?" Link asked, swallowing loudly.

"I need you to push those buttons right there," Falco said, pointing to several buttons that were by the joystick.

"What do they do?" Link asked, getting around Kirby.

"They should control this ships guns. Let Kirby aim and you fire."  
"Great…" Link said.

"I'll see what I can do for the electrical systems!" Raichu said, before dashing to another part of the ship.

"Uh…yeah, you go do that," Falco muttered, as he grabbed the controls in front of him and shifted the view of the ship slightly, "If Dark Samus is right below us…why isn't she doing anything?"

While Falco was figuring out how to work the ship, Samus, Mario and Meta were on top of the planet. Looking out at the blue wasteland, Mario turned a questioning glance towards Samus. Shrugging, she took a guess as to what he was "asking" her.

"Nope. I have no idea as to how you can breathe here. I also don't know why this amount of Phazon isn't killing you guys, since you're suitless. Something to figure out later."

Mario nodded, and with a skillful jump he leapt off the side of the ship, followed closely by Meta-Knight. Samus walked to the tallest portion of the sloped ship and noticed the difficulty she had walking that short of a distance…since her ship was in motion, it detected her on top and the suit was magnetically, or electrically…or something, attached to the ship.

"So…I'm not going to fall off, but I won't be able to dodge very well either," Samus said, looking around for Dark Samus. The shield Bario created pulsated slightly barely an inch above her head…

Mario and Meta didn't fall very far before Mario stopped in midair, his cape flapping and Meta hovered. They scanned the area below them…but didn't see Dark Samus…

In the cargo bay…

"Bario…can you create another portal?"  
"What? To where?"

"To my home…to Kong Island."

"Why? What's there?" Bario questioned.

"Well, my family for one," Diddy said.

"That's not what I meant."  
"Well…it's just been a while since I was there. And seeing how Mario's place, Link's Hyrule and this planet Samus knows about have all pretty much gone to hell…I'm kind of worried."

"I see. That does seem like it would be wise to check…"

"Plus, I know if Donkey Kong is there he would want to join us, and having an extra person around has to help right?"  
"Diddy, you had me at the you being worried part. I'll help. It will take me a while to find your home though, let alone open a portal to it."

"Oh. Is there any way to speed it up?" Diddy asked.

"Well…it would help if we could do some kind of mental link. That would at least help focus the place in my mind.

"Okay…how is that done?"  
"Just relax…" Bario said, before placing his open palm on Diddy's head. A purple light surrounded them as Bario started work on opening a new portal…

Falco meanwhile was just getting the hang of the ship, but if he was reading the sensors in front of him correctly, Dark Samus wasn't beneath them at all. He could pick up Samus on the top of the ship, and even Mario and Meta-Knight who were getting dangerously close to the ground beneath them, approximately a hundred feet below the ship…but no Dark Samus.

"Falco…where is she?" Link asked nervously.

"I don't know! According to this, she's not below us…I'm going to widen the search…" Falco muttered, hitting some buttons.

Raichu wandered over and looked at the many screens in front of Falco.

"Hey…what's that?"  
Falco jumped in surprise before turning towards Raichu.

"Agh! Where have you been?"  
"Oh, just making sure the electrical systems are operating at peak efficiency. One of the engines was being weird after Samus bumped it against the side of the tunnel coming out. The current wasn't traveling right, so I fixed it."  
"Uh…thanks," Falco said.

"So?"  
"So what?"  
"What's that?" Raichu asked, pointing vaguely at the screens.

"What?" Falco asked, looking over the scanning one, the target-lock one, the navigational, etc.

"The one that has the small flashing dot on it!" Raichu said, leaning over and tapping a screen.

"Agh! Careful!" Falco said, trying to brush away Raichu's hand, only to get a mild shock, "OW!"  
"Sorry!"  
Falco cradled his tingling hand and looked at the screen. There was indeed a flashing dot, and according to the numbers and symbols beneath the screen, it represented something right behind the ship.

"What is that…oh…no…Dark Samus!" Falco yelled, yanking the stick in front of him that controlled the direction of the ship…but was too late, as something powerful hit the ship from behind, sending the ship, and its occupants tumbling to the ground.

Mario and Meta were flying beneath the ship, trying to avoid the many tentacles when they heard a loud explosion and spun around…just in time to see the ship falling towards them.

Samus felt the ship pitch forward, but her suit kept her attached to the ship. She could see the ship tumbling towards the ground, but as she turned around, she saw that she would be unable to get back inside in time.

Diddy and Bario flew forward, but the purple light around them stopped them before they hit the wall, and neither opened their eyes, as if they were unaware of what was happening around them…

"Falco!" Raichu and Link yelled at the same time.

"WHAT?" Falco yelled back, yanking hard on the stick in front of him.

"Pull up! Pull up!"  
"What do you think I'm trying to do?!"  
Mario and Meta-Knight flew out from under the ship, the wash of it falling yanked on them slightly, but they managed to stay airborne…and saw a dark blue object flash past them.

Samus aimed her cannon and fired a missile at Dark Samus as she flew towards the ship, intent on finishing the job. The missile missed, and Dark Samus fired a Phazon shot. Samus ducked, and the purple shield served to weaken the attack, causing it to miss Samus and strike harmlessly into the side of the ship. Clearly the attack that served to knock the ship out of the air was considerably more powerful…

Falco groaned with effort as he pulled back on the stick. The ship started coming out of the dive mere meters above the ground. Falco started to breathe a sigh of relief…until he clipped one of the blue tentacles, sending the ship into a spin.

Mario and Meta followed after the ship, struggling to keep up with its fall, and a missile skimmed past Mario. They saw Dark Samus fire and miss, and then the ship started to pull up, until it hit one of those blue tentacles that sent it into a spin. Dark Samus backed off immediately, attempting to avoid the dangerous ship…and that slow down of speed for Dark Samus was enough to allow Mario and Meta a chance to get close…

Falco managed to get the ship out of the spin, and ignored the shrieks from the other passengers. Pulling the ship up he turned it around once it was well above the planet's surface…and aimed it at Dark Samus.

"Aim carefully you two!" Falco said to Kirby and Link.

Mario hit Dark Samus in the back with a firebomb. She spun around and shot off a Phazon ball at him, but he was already moving out of the way, and Meta managed to throw a handful of energy balls at Dark Samus. Most of them missed, but two managed to connect with her leg and chest.

Dark Samus glided towards Meta, her flying ability clearly better than ever, but Mario dashed up and slammed her in the back with his hammer. She spun around and kicked him in the stomach, and managed to spin back and hit Meta with a Phazon shot before he could hit her with his sword.

Mario recovered nearly instantly though, and a missile that narrowly missed Dark Samus indicated that Samus, and by extension her ship, were closing in on her. Dark Samus fled.

"HEY!" Falco yelled, looking at his viewport.

"What?" Link asked.

"She's running away! After her!"  
"Falco…you're the one piloting," Raichu said.

"What? Oh! Yeah!" Falco said, silently berating himself, "Let's hope this button does what I think it does…"

Falco slammed a button by the control stick, and the ship shot forward.

Samus aimed again, hoping to hit Dark Samus with a Super Missile, but the ship jerked forward just as she was firing, and the attack missed. Samus cursed and started charging again.

Mario and Meta flapped after Dark Samus who was trying to get away from the ship, when it flew over their heads…and right on past Dark Samus. Dark Samus instantly stopped and turned to the right, before shooting off in that direction. Mario and Meta turned just as quickly, and continued the chase, firing their projectiles ahead of them.

"You missed her!" Raichu said.

"What?"   
"You went to fast and flew right over her!"  
"Agh! Cut back our speed! I guess this ship goes way faster than Dark Samus!"  
"Where's the speed controls?" Raichu asked.

"They should be right there," Falco answered, pointing to a series of knobs and switches by his feet.

"I'm on it!"

"Do you know how to use-" Falco started to say, before Raichu stuck both of his tiny hands on the controls, and shot multiple bursts of electricity into them. The ship immediately slowed down.

"Never mind," Falco said, twisting the control yoke so hard that the ship turned on its side. Falco pointed the ship at Dark Samus and straightened it out, "Let's try this again."

Samus cursed at the ship jerked again, but at least this time she wasn't firing anything.

"Maybe I should get BACK!" Samus shrieked as she suddenly found herself horizontal, looking straight down at the planet. The ship righted itself quickly…and Samus soon saw Dark Samus.

Dark Samus spun in midair and created large pillars made of Phazon, hoping to trip up Mario and Meta, but the two of them flew around the pillars and kept up their assault.  
Falco pulled up when he saw the pillars being created, but despite the maneuver, Kirby managed to get a lock on Dark Samus and Link hit a button, shooting off a rather large missile from the ship.

Mario and Meta ducked under a stream of Phazon, just as a missile, easily three times the size of the ones Samus usually fired shot past and slammed into Dark Samus, sending her plummeting to Zebes.

Before anyone could celebrate, a massive pillar of Phazon shot up…and on it was Dark Samus. She charged up and fired a massive blue laser of Phazon at the ship, which Falco barely managed to avoid, and only the purple shield prevented them from taking any damage from the near miss. Then, as Mario and Meta flew towards her, Dark Samus surrounded herself in a glowing field of Phazon that sent the two falling back.

Dark Samus than suddenly seemed to split…into three Dark Samus's. The three spread out and started charging up something.

"What's going on?" Falco demanded, bringing the ship to a stop, facing the center Dark Samus.

"I don't know!" Link answered.

"Well do something!" Falco yelled.

A gleeful shriek from Kirby indicated a lock on the center Dark Samus, and Link fired.

Mario and Meta managed to get a hold of themselves and turned to face the left Dark Samus. Nodding to each other they flew towards it, Mario smashing with his hammer, and Meta slashing with his blade.

The missile connected solidly with the center Dark Samus, and it exploded…both of them. Blue Phazon fluttered to the ground from the remains of that Dark Samus. Mario and Meta's attack reduced the second one to dust as well.

Seeing that, Samus turned to the last Dark Samus and released her charged attack. The attack this time was something new. Samus not only poured a fully charged Power Beam into it, but also her Ice Beam and all of her missiles. She poured in all the power from every single one of her suit's systems, and the beam shot out of her arm cannon and widened until it was as tall as she was, and considerably wider.

This blue-ish white beam, this "Zero Laser", shot forward and completely plowed through Dark Samus. Dark Samus let out one strangled screech…before being completely vaporized. In the aftermath of the explosion, the blue Phazon that had made up Dark Samus turned a dark purple…and vanished.  
Unfortunately the attack had used up all the power in Samus's suit, and it collapsed to the top of the ship, useless. Samus was now suitless, garbed only in a blue skintight jumpsuit. No longer protected by her suit, the Phazon radiation hit Samus hard, and gasping for breath she fell down. Grabbing her suit pieces she threw them into a hole she opened up by hitting several switches on the ceiling of the ship, before falling in that as well.

Inside the ship there was stunned silence. They had managed to witness the destruction of the three Dark Samus's, and were trying to process their victory. But process it did, and soon they were all cheering.

The cheering ended abruptly when Samus's suit fell in the hallway between the cockpit, followed by a gasping Samus.

"Samus?" Link asked, stepping towards her.

Samus struggled to get up, and when she did, she ignored Link and staggered over to Falco.

"We need…to get out…here!"  
"What? Why?" Falco asked as Samus pushed him out the chair and squeezed in herself.

"Ow! Hey, you could have just asked!"

"With the source controlling the Phazon dead…the planet is going to explode!" Samus said, turning the ship around, "We have to escape!"  
"We can't!" Raichu yelled.

"What? Why not?" Samus demanded.

"Mario and Meta are still out there!"  
The planet beneath Mario and Meta was shuddering. Realizing they should get back to the ship they turned around, just as a liquid wall of Phazon shot up, separating them from their only escape.

"Damn!" Samus said as the Phazon appeared from the dying planet, "We can't get to them in time…we'll have to leave!"  
"We can't!" Falco said.

"If we go back to save them, we'll all die!" Samus said, pointing the ship towards the sky.

"There must be another way!" Raichu cried.

"There is."

Mario and Meta frantically avoided pillars of Phazon that were becoming more and more rapid. It seemed over for them…until a purple disc appeared in front of them, floating in midair. Without a second thought, the two dived into the portal.

"What? Bario?" Samus said, turning to the new speaker, as he and Diddy came back from the cargo bay.

"I managed to open a portal to Diddy's home. Mario and Meta escaped through it…now we have to."  
Link sighed in relief, but then looked suspiciously at Bario. Opening portals was hard work, and Bario, while vaguely tired looking, did not seem like it took as much out of him that it should have.

"I see it!" Samus said, pointing the ship towards the portal.

"Hurry, I can't hold it open for much longer." Bario stated calmly, a hint of a strain creeping into his voice.

Samus nodded and pushed the speed of the ship up. It skimmed past a pillar of Phazon, but continued on unhindered. The ship flew into the portal…just as the planet Zebes exploded from its uncontrolled, unstable Phazon energy, sending a torrent of deadly energy down the portal…after the Smashers…


	30. Family can be a BAD thing

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Thirty: Why Family is a BAD thing**

_**In a land with dimensions numbering one less than three…**_

The familiar portal opened again, this time depositing Bowser rather roughly on a strange platform. It was about six feet long and narrow, and was jutting out of a tan colored wall. Bowser groaned and clambered to his feet. Looking around, he saw similar platforms, but not much else. He turned around…and fell seven feet to the ground.

Bowser cried out sharply in pain, before getting up again, slightly slower. Apparently the platform only exists in two dimensions, and when Bowser turned around he was temporarily in three, causing the platform to not be present under him. Fortunately for his sake the ground he was on existed in all three dimensions.

"Grr," Bowser growled, looking around at the shifting scenery, "This is why I hate this place…Stupid dimensions and pixilated morons."  
Bowser wandered around trying to figure where Mr. Game & Watch was, when a two-dimensional dark colored character who was clinging to the bottom of the platform Bowser had been on, gleefully flung a bucket of oil at Bowser. Yes, a BUCKET. It slammed into the side of his shell and spilled oil all over the ground where Bowser was standing. While spinning around to try and find the character that performed the nefarious deed Bowser slipped in the oil and fell onto the ground. Again.

Bowser grumbled and stood up, backing away from the oil spill carefully as the poorly animated man laughed at Bowser. Well, to be accurate, the man did laughing movement, but no laughter escaped him, only an annoying beeping sound. Glaring at him, Bowser let loose a ball of flame from his mouth that hit the oil spill. The flames traveled quickly across the small patch of oil and reached up high enough to reach the man.

Startled, he lost his grip on the platform and fell to the ground where he quickly became covered in flame. The beeping noise from him became louder and higher pitched, but in a few seconds he turned into a pile of ash that quickly blew away in the two-dimensional wind.

"That's better," Bowser said with a grin, "Now where's that stupid watch guy?"

Bowser did not have to wait long. Mr. Game & Watch hopped down from a platform and faced the large turtle. Mr. G&W was short, about four feet tall, completely black and possessed strange rounded limbs. His head was basically a circle with a protuberant nose and no features. Also, surprisingly, he was two-dimensional.

Bowser grinned when seeing him, hoping that this annoying assignment would soon be concluded.

"Alright there…you need to come with me. Some people want you present for an…event…thing," Bowser said, betting that Mr. G&W wouldn't come peacefully.

Mr. G&W stayed where he was, about ten feet from Bowser, and proceeded to consider the request. Of course since he couldn't stand still while considering, he made several jerky, poorly animated…ah hem…stiffly moved…movements, that consisted of him scratching his general chin area.  
After about thirty seconds of this, with no discernible change, the normally impatient Bowser was getting quite irritated.

"Are you coming or not?" Bowser growled, hints of flame leaking out from the sides of his large mouth.

Mr. G&W seemed to think a little longer before shaking his head.

"What? Either you come with me conscious, or I beat you and drag you with me anyways!"

When Mr. G&W continued to decline, Bowser started to stomp forward. Mr. G&W pulled out a small black frying pan from that magical place all people can store items in, and began to launch pieces of burnt flaming sausage at the enraged turtle.

Bowser raised his claws up to protect his face, and hissed in pain as the smoking meat products hit his scaly flesh. Bowser lowered his arms and breathed a blast of fire, but G&W was already moving out of the way. Bowser attempted to follow, but G&W's quick, jerking movements made him hard to track.

Bowser rolled into his shell, creating a spiky whirling fortress and started to spin towards G&W. A second before Bowser hit him, G&W leapt into the air, and two similar figures, dressed like firefighters, flipped into visible range and held a trampoline under G&W. The trampoline sent G&W flying up, and he managed to grab a platform, while Bowser smashed his firefighting helpers into black, two-dimensional pulp.

Bowser unrolled and scanned the shifting platforms above him. G&W was difficult to spot, his black coloring blending in well with the black platforms. Bowser was about to give up and just start torching the whole area, when a black wrench slammed into his head.

He let out a yelp and looked up, fire blazing in both his mouth and eyes when a similarly colored bucket hit him in between the eyes. Starting to catch on, Bowser retreated back into his shell as a series of tools and random objects started to fall from the sky.

"I really hate this place," Bowser mumbled.

After a minute or two, or the rain of objects ceased. G&W stepped down and started walking slowly towards the unmoving shell of Bowser. Before he reached him, Bowser shoved his head out of his shell and breathed some fire at the little guy. Quick as a flash (which are quite quick) Game & Watch yanked out a container and used it to absorb all of Bowser's flames.

Bowser stopped when he noticed his attacks were not having an effect, and that was when G&W threw the contents of the container, oil that had absorbed Bowser's fire. The oil hit Bowser like a brick, and he reeled.

Bowser tried to prevent his collapse, but before he could recover G&W walked over to Bowser, held up a small flag with a numeric symbol on it, and lightly tapped Bowser with a small mallet. An electric charge flew into Bowser from the mallet, and he was sent flying.

Bowser skidded to the ground several meters away, and skidded to a stop. He lay splayed down, completely motionless. Game & Watch seemed reluctant to move forward, but after several seconds of no movement he stepped forward. He reached Bowser and reached a pixilated finger towards him, when Bowser slashed at G&W's leg, catching it and lifting him up as the turtle stood up.

"Got you!" Bowser said.

G&W struggled to free himself as Bowser held him upside-down. Not wishing to deal with a struggling two-dimensional man (Bowser wasn't entirely sure how he could hold him) Bowser slammed G&W into the ground, knocking him out.

Bowser breathed some fire in front of him, and the flames became a circle that shifted until they had become a portal.

"I really hope M.C. appreciates this," Bowser said, before stepping into the portal with his unwilling baggage.

_**In the skies above Kong Island…**_

A purple portal ripped open in the skies above Kong Island, and shooting out of it came a small orange ship. However, the ship was not the only thing coming out…

"Bario! Close that portal!" Samus said, struggling to gain control of the ship, after its hectic chase through the portal.

"I'm trying! The power from the planet is coming fast!" Bario said, sweat covering his brow.

The others looked on in fear as a blue surge of energy became visible through the hole in space, and a second before it came through, the portal slammed shut, like a door.

"There…we…go," Bario wheezed, before collapsing behind Kirby.

Samus nodded and started to look for a place to put her ship down. Diddy wandered over and started to give her directions, while the rest of the Smashers attempted to take a much needed breather.  
Link took opportunity of the lull to take a good look at Samus. It was the first time that he…well, actually, any of them got to see the woman beneath the armor, and Link didn't have to say it was a pleasant revelation.  
She really was quite beautiful. Her blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, but it was quite bright and shiny, like Zelda's used to be before her hair changed into the very brown color it is now. Her face was unblemished, a common side-effect of being a hero, and her skintight blue suit did nothing to hide her curves.  
If he and Zelda weren't together he might have been entertaining thoughts of him and Samus…after all, she was clearly about the same age as him but Link doubted that Samus was really looking for any kind of relationship. Of course that wasn't to say that he wasn't interested…

While Link was considering the possibility of a match-up, Diddy directed Samus to a clearing in the jungles of Kong Island, where Samus easily landed the ship.

Kong Island is an interesting place. The center feature of the island was a large mountain, that was strangely enough, shaped like Donkey Kong's head. Surrounding the mountain was a lush jungle consisting mostly of large, thick palm trees and bushes, and spattered about the jungle were numerous small clearings, like the one that the Smashers were currently in.

The clearing they were in was located near Donkey Kong's tree house, where a most epic battle had recently taken place. The Smashers slowly filed out, Diddy talking excitedly to Raichu, and Link looking pensive. Mario leaped out and looked around the area with bright eyes, while Meta-Knight said something random about "Rev aeb". Kirby had found a large hunk of cheese from…somewhere, and was consuming it most readily while Falco came out still slightly tense from his piloting. Bario came off the ship muttering something under his breath.

Samus was the last one out, having put her suit back together and hooking it into the ships charging area, as she had spent all the power in the suit to use the beam that annihilated her dark self. Still garbed in her skintight blue jumpsuit, Samus grabbed a stun gun she had lying around for situations like these and joined the others outside the ship.  
Once Samus was off the ship she hit several buttons in a rapid sequence next to the ramp they used to exit. The ramp retracted into the ship, and the ship flew into the air.

There was a moment of stunned silence as the Smashers tried to process what they had just witnessed. There were several amusing croaks as they looked from the sky, where the ship was becoming a rapidly receding dot, to Samus who was looking back at them with a cool and even stare.

"Samus…why?" Falco asked.

"I don't want anything happening to my ship while we're here." Samus answered quickly.

"But what if we need it?" Diddy asked, some of his excitement fading.

"I can call it back down. Don't worry about it."

Samus looked at the others has if expecting them to question her again. She seemed significantly more self-conscious, although that might have been because of her very tight suit. After a moment of awkward silences, Diddy spoke up.

"Well…uh…Donkey Kong's cabin is just over there," he said, gesturing to a pathway through the thick trees, "Let's check it out…?" He said in a way that seemed almost like a question.

Bario nodded at Diddy, and the nine of them headed through the trail. Silence pervaded ahead of the group as Link was quietly plotting the confrontation that had been due ever since this "adventure" started. He planned to get to the bottom of everything that had been happening recently…and he knew where to start…with their self-styled leader.

The Smashers quickly reached another clearing and inside of this one was a tree house…the tree house where Donkey Kong lived. With an excited squeak, Diddy dashed up the side and clambered into the cabin before the others had a chance to blink.

The Smashers waited beneath the house, unsure of what to do, but when Diddy failed to make any more noise, they started to become worried. When a call from Raichu yielded no answer, the Smashers scrambled up the ladder, with the exception of Meta, who flew up, shouting about something called "Drib," and Mario, who jumped up.

The Smashers poured into the cabin, when Raichu, who was in the lead, stopped so abruptly to avoid running into the motionless Diddy that Falco and Kirby crashed into him, sending the three of them into a wall.

"Diddy…what's wrong?" Bario asked.

Diddy slowly turned around, and his voice was almost unheard it was so quiet.

"Donkey Kong is gone."

Before the validity of that claim could be verified, there was a shriek of rage from outside the cabin and Meta-Knight came flying in, sword drawn. Link and Samus were too slow to avoid the enraged metal knight, and two brutal whacks with the flat of his blade to the sides their heads sent them to the ground. Meta flew unhindered…right towards Bario.

Bario managed to turn around in time, and as he raised a hand, one of his swords materialized in it and Bario managed to deflect Meta's initial strike.

"You…slime…CONTROL!" Meta shouted, before spinning around and slashing at Bario's head.

Bario parried, and by causing his second sword to appear, he managed to get a solid blow on Meta's helmet. The masked warrior shrugged it off and flung a trio of energy balls at Bario, who dodged them. The balls flew past and left smoking indentations in the side of the house.

Meta Knight dashed forward again, but a large yellow ball slammed into him, causing him to lose control and collapse to the floor. He twitched several times, uttered the word "mind" once or twice, before finally laying still with a choked "Eeb.".

Bario looked gratefully at Samus, who was staring at Meta with wide eyes, her stun gun still smoking.

"What just happened?" Diddy asked, as Raichu, Falco and Kirby disentangled themselves and Mario walked in and helped Link up.

"I d-don't know," Bario stammered, before Link lunged forward, grabbed a big fistful of Bario's shirt and slammed the lighter man into the cabin wall. Hard.

"Agh! What?" Bario choked out before Link slammed him into the wall again.

"Link! What are you doing?" Samus asked.

"Answers! I want some answers NOW!" Link shouted, before dropping the swordsman to the ground, where he wheezed for a second, trying to catch his breath.

"What are you talking about?" Falco shouted, unsure of what to do, as everyone started to move towards Link and Bario.

"Link…I don't know…what…you mean," Bario said, starting to stand up, before a brutal kick caught the man in the chest, knocking him back down.

"LIAR! Meta-Knight went right for you!"  
"STOP!" Raichu yelled.

"Link you moron!" Samus said sharply, catching Link's attention, "He attacked us too…or didn't you notice?"

"He got us out of the way…he was after Bario here," Link said, "And some of those things he said…I didn't like them."  
"Well…you don't particularly like me either," Bario stated, trying to get back up.

Link reared back for another kick, but Samus came in between him and his intended target.

"Link! Calm DOWN!"

Link growled and reached as if to shove Samus away. As soon as his hand touched her shoulder she spun around, knocking his hand away, and then hit him in the chest with a high kick that sent him stumbling back.

"I said CALM DOWN." Samus repeated.

Bario leaned against the cabin for support as he stood back up.

"Link…I don't know why Meta-Knight attacked me, but-"

"LIAR!" Link shouted again.

"Fine. If you won't listen to reason, why don't we lay this all out on the table. What do you want to know?" Bario asked exasperatedly.

Startled, Link didn't respond right away. It didn't take long though, for the angry look to return to his eyes, and he snapped off a heated reply.

"I want an explanation on why Meta-Knight attacked you, how powerful your magic is, why you're here, where you're from and your intentions."

The others didn't say anything, stunned from Links outburst, and eventually Bario responded, his voice calm and controlled, more so than either Link or Samus, who had backed off a bit but was prepared to jump back in if necessary.  
"I already said I don't know why he attacked me. He's clearly suffering from some kind of mental damage, and he needs help. My magic…well you've seen the extent of it pretty much. Magic balls, portals, limited healing, some ability to nullify others abilities…nothing too strong. In fact, the portal opening is probably what I'm best at, and as you can see, this is the first time we actually got to where we wanted."  
Link listened carefully to Bario, looking for a contradiction or error to catch him on, but so far…nothing.

"As for why I'm here, well…I heard that there was some kind of guarding job going on at Peach's castle. I wanted to do something, and I've heard the tales…legends really, of a few of you, and was looking forward to meeting you all. You especially Link."

Link was taken aback, but attempted to resist the flattery.

"Where did you hear this from…and don't lie…I know you're not from Hyrule."

It was Bario's turn to be taken aback, but he recovered quickly, and answered.

"You're right…I'm not."  
The others seemed mildly surprised, and Link let out a triumphant grin, certain that he was almost at the bottom of this annoying puzzle.

"Then where are you from?" Diddy asked, all thoughts of Donkey Kong temporarily wiped from his mind.

"I…don't know." Bario said, which was definitely not the answer they were expecting to hear…not that they were actually expecting anything.

"How can you not KNOW?" Link asked angrily, frustrated that Bario was seemingly avoiding the question.

"Because…I have been twisting through various dimensions all of my life. I was just learning to control it and my other abilities when I found out about you all, Mario, Samus, Link, Kirby, even some of the rest of you. I followed any stories I could of you, hoping I could meet you, and attempting to control this uncontrollable power of mine. I was looking forward to meeting with my heroes, fighting with them…not treated like some SCUMBAG!" Bario yelled with surprising vehemence.

The Smashers turned slightly shameful eyes towards Link, who was starting to feel quite abashed. Before he could respond, either to apologize or to continue the questioning, a loud bang sounded…and three oranges flew through the window of the cabin and landed in the middle of the group.

They stared at it for a few seconds until Diddy said "Run!"

Realizing what the objects were the Smashers dashed out of the cabin, with Mario pausing long enough to grab the motionless body of Meta-Knight…who twitched slightly upon being touched. Appearing not to notice, Mario was the last to leave the cabin, seconds behind the others…just as the orange grenades exploded, blowing off a sizable chunk of the right wall.

"WHOA!" A deep and somewhat mellow voice yelled out. "Those dudes totally just dodged it!"

"Back in my day we didn't miss. In fact, in my day we didn't have fancy oranges! We threw barrels! And they never missed!" An old voice that sounded vaguely like nails on a chalkboard joined the first, and from the sound of it, the pair was coming around the side of the building.

"Don't worry dear, we all know how much you love the old days," another old voice was heard, with the distinctive crinkly sound that the elderly seem to possess, although this one seemed strangely ethereal and was decidedly more feminine.

"Well, if you were competing in one of my contests, you would have just lost! Ha ha!" A fourth voice, this one oily and sly joined the others.

"Well, if you'd like…I could give you some of my melons…" said a fifth and final voice, this one also female, and the line was delivered with a seductive purr.

The owners of these voices finally came into view, and Diddy's sneaking suspicions were confirmed…although he was still shocked.

"Funky, Cranky, Wrinkly, Swanky and Candy…" Diddy said in a kind of stunned whisper.

Funky, the first voice, was obviously an ape, and bore a body similar to Donkey Kong's except slightly more proportional. He was clad in a torn black shirt, jeans, and of course…sunglasses. He was carrying a large hollow log which was slung over his shoulder.

Cranky was stooped with age and was wearing a white shirt that went well with his long beard. Cranky was only about four feet tall, compared to Funky's six foot six, and used a wooden cane to help him stand.

Wrinkly was old, and very dead. In fact, she was so dead that she was a ghost. Transparent, old, thick glasses and oh yeah, she was old. And also dead/

Swanky was proportioned like a human, but was skinny and had sparkling teeth a multicolored flashing garb and some kind of freaky afro.

Candy was also proportioned like a human, and her small red shirt…skirt…thing, did not leave much to the imagination. She was covered in brown fur like the others, bore the distinctive monkey muzzle like the others…and bore distinctive markers of the female body, unlike the others.

"Diddy…who are they?" Raichu whispered.  
"Uh…they're family. Mine to be exact."

"That's right Diddy my man! And we've been looking for you!" Funky said.

"What? Why?"

"Swanky here saw Donkey get beat up and dragged off." Funky told him.

"You saw what?!" Diddy exclaimed.

"Yes-a-ree! I saw Donkey fight this big green fellow in armor! Oh man what a fight! I could have made so much money off it! Yes, indeed I could-"

"Shut up you stupid ape!" Cranky said.

"Armor?" Diddy asked.

"Sounds like Ganondorf was here," Link said with a growl.

"What?! Why would he be here?!" Diddy asked loudly.

"Clearly he was here to collect Donkey Kong. " Bario stated.

"Funky! See I was right! They're the reason Donkey Kong got apenapped!" Cranky yelled, pointing an accusing finger.

"Are you sure old dude…Diddy's with them," Funky said, "And he wouldn't do that.

"Yeah Cranky, I bet my little man Diddy wouldn't do anything to his uncle Donkey?" Candy said in a "speaking to morons" voice.

"What? No! I have nothing to do with that!" Diddy said, confused as to why Cranky was accusing him.

"Ah ha! I know you did! You're probably the mastermind behind all this!" Cranky shouted.

"NO!" Diddy said, and the Smashers nodded their heads in agreement.

"Then you leave me no choice! Wrinkly, fusion time!" Cranky said.

"Whatever you say dear," his dead wife said resignedly.

She floated slowly over to Cranky and then dived directly into his body. His body was soon glowing with ghostly energy.

"Ha ha!" Cranky said in a strange dual voice, "With the power of ghosts, I, Crinkly will kill you all!"  
"Um old guy…did you just inhale that dead lady?" Falco asked in shock.

"Yes! What of it?" Cranky asked.

"Wouldn't having a ghost possess you…kill you?" Bario asked.

"HA! That would only happen if she got to my heart-" Cranky paused and then, wide-eyed, clutched at his heart, before falling to the ground, very dead.

"Huh. That was anti-climactic," Raichu stated.

"Can't say I'm sad," Diddy said, looking as Cranky's body started to twitch wildly as inside it he tried to kill his now equally dead wife.

"Wow, sorry man," Funky said, "Cranky said you were the guys who got D.K. so uh…yeah. Whoops. Do you know anything about what happened to him?"

"Nothing besides what we learned here…do you need him back?" Bario asked.

Disappointed by the lack of information about Donkey, Candy looped her arm around Swanky and started to sashay him towards her cabin.

"Yeah, pretty badly. K. Rool is becoming really aggressive, and we need some more fighters."  
"What? What about Kiddy and Chunky?" Diddy asked.

"K. Rool?" Raichu asked.

"I'll explain later," Diddy said, as Funky answered his question.

"Those guys are gone. Dixie, Lanky and Tiny all left to. They found some kind of secret banana treasure place and went after it. Donkey and me were supposed to hold off the baddies…but well," Funky trailed off.

"Well don't worry! We'll take care of him! Right guys?" Diddy asked.

"Huh? Oh yeah sure…who is he?" Bario asked.

Diddy started to explain about the evil reptile king similar to Bowser who terrorized them at Kong Island, but stopped in the middle, realizing that something funky just said was very wrong and was about to ask him about it, when a sudden rustling drew his attention.

"What was that?" Link asked.

"Looks like K. Rool is attacking again," Funky said, lifting his log as something burst from the trees in front of them…something large.


	31. Obscenely Large Animals

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Thirty-One: Obscenely large animals on parade!**

The Smashers drew back as the creature revealed itself, knocking several trees down. It stood only ten feet high, but its strange sloping body caused it to mass quite a bit. It possessed a long flat tail that was a dull red color that contrasted sharply with the light blue of its short fur. Its five-inch long teeth glistened as the Smashers confronted Very Gnawty, the giant blue beaver…thing…guy.

There were several moments of silence as the Smashers stared at the beaver. It suddenly let out a loud chortling guffaw and leapt forward. It hit the ground with a resounding crash and leapt again. Reacting quickly the Smashers opened fire.

Their projectiles flew with deadly force, slamming hard into the immense beaver. It cocked its head, and tried to move forward, but a particularly painful one managed to hit him, and with a loud guffaw, the beast turned around and retreated back into the jungle.

The Smashers stared at where it had been for a bit, trying to decide what to do, when Funky yelled something at them.

"You guys go on ahead, I'll hold down the fort…although I'm not too sure what I'm protecting it for anymore…"

"Are you sure you can handle it by yourself?" Falco asked.

At that moment a trio of beavers similar to Very Gnawty ran out from the trees, although they were only three feet tall. Funky aimed and fired a single orange, and the resulting explosion turned the feeble creatures into singed beaver flesh, that had little to no resemblance to an actual beaver.

"Never mind." Falco said, and he and the others ran into the trees, after the beaver.

The jungle, despite it consisting of merely palm trees and shrubs, was quite thick. Another unfortunate aspect of it was that they couldn't even follow the trail of trampled plant life, since the trees seemed to bounce back after being pushed aside.  
Regardless, the Smashers surged on through, with an occasional grunt or cry of effort. They followed the sound of loud, beaver-like guffaws and eventually managed to break onto some kind of path.

A quick look down the path by Link revealed that it was the one connected to Donkey Kong's cabin. The trees grew thickly alongside it, but the actual path was clear, covered only in dirt. And on the path, running away was the beaver. The big one. Not the little ones, because they're lame. Well, actually the big one isn't that great either. Hmph. Anyways, the big one was being Very Gnawty (which also happens to be its name).

Link fired an arrow at the retreating creature. The projectile slammed into its back, and it spun around, temporarily revealing that the ocean lay behind it, a good deal farther down the path.

Gnawty guffawed again, and started leaping towards the Smashers. Grinning, they aimed, and were about to open fire, when dozens of beavers swarmed out from behind him.

"Oh…dear," Raichu said.

The Smashers took a few steps back, but then stood their ground and opened fire. Diddy threw oranges, Bario fired his magic balls, Link shot arrows, Raichu shot balls of electricity, Mario shot firebombs, Samus fired stun bolts, Falco did his lasers and Kirby shot shockwaves. The beavers were weak and easily killed, but there were a lot of them, and Gnawty just kept leaping forward.

Once Link switched to bomb arrows however, the beavers were forced to retreat. The thirty feet separating them from the Smashers were too dangerous. Gnawty actually tore through the trees near him and started to run.

"He's escaping! Get him!" Diddy said.

Before Gnawty could be got, there was a loud crashing sound, and bursting from the trees a scant twenty-eight feet in front of them came three beavers…rolling around in giant stone wheels.

"FIRE!" Bario commanded, before following his own advice.

A few shots later, and the wheels, already possessing several large cracks, disintegrated as the Smashers fired at them. The beavers inside were killed instantly.

Before the Smashers could turn their attention back to the large amount of beavers waiting a few feet away, there was a loud rustling and Very Gnawty burst from the trees right next to them, his massive bulk slamming into Samus, Mario and Kirby, sending the three of them tumbling into palm trees on the other side of the path.

Gnawty laughed, but before it could attack again, Link slashed at it, opening up a deep wound on its side. Laughing again, Gnawty ran back into the trees.

"Stupid beaver!" Raichu said, shooting a small bolt of lightning at the beavers that were starting to edge closer.

"At least he's weak," Samus said, having got up.

"Yeah, he is. I don't understand why K. Rool would just send him though," Diddy said, "I mean he's got way more lackeys than these beavers."

At Diddy's words, there was a loud rumbling, followed by an equally loud squawk. Gnawty burst from the trees and rejoined his beavers as something large and brown became barely visible over the top of the trees.

"What the heck is that?" Falco asked.

His question was answered when a large snake-like object pushed its way through the upper layer of the trees, a good twenty feet up. In fact, that's what most of them thought it was at first, until they noticed the beak. They then realized that it was the head of some monstrous bird.

Closer inspection of its pale pink neck and featherless head, revealed that this wasn't just any bird. It was a vulture.

"That's Necky!" Diddy cried out in surprise, "Watch out! He spits-"

The rest of Diddy's warning was lost when the Smashers had to dodge a large walnut expelled from the oversized vulture's throat.

"Agh! Another of this K. Rool's guys lackeys?" Raichu asked.

"Yeah! Don't worry, he's not that bad!" Diddy said, shooting some peanuts at the far-up head. Necky seemed irritated and spat another nut, which Diddy skillfully avoided. His attacks seemed harmless, so Link fired a bomb arrow.

The powerful explosive slammed into the side of Necky's…well, neck, and the bird screeched and retracted its head.

Before anyone could celebrate, a quieter screeching was heard…and a squadron of large brown vultures appeared in the sky, heading towards the Smashers.

The vultures weren't massive, they were only about the size of say, Link or Mario, but there were about a dozen of them, and more enemies in addition to the thirty-plus beavers already was not something the Smashers wanted to worry about.

"Get ready," Bario commanded, as the Smashers, having recovered from the previous assaults, aimed at the approaching enemies.

Before they could open fire, more birdly screeching ensued…and another dozen vultures started flapping from the east…and a third dozen from the west. Gnawty, his wound still seeping blood came out from the trees where his beavers waited and stood behind them, a faint laugh escaping his mouth. Rustling from the trees revealed where Necky was, as his vultures circled high over head, casting long shadows over the Smashers.

"Wow…" Falco said, "This is like…the opposite of good."  
"Stay calm," Bario said.

"Like I need your instructions," Link sneered.

"Link! Not now!" Samus scolded.

Link growled, but merely readied an arrow.

"I haven't seen this many of K. Rool's lackeys in one area…ever." Diddy said in awe.

Before any attacks could be made, a loud buzzing was heard, and several creatures came flying out of the jungle.

They looked like bees, but were about the size of the vultures, and had several large spikes leading down to a long dangerous looking stinger on their bright yellow and black bodies.

"Zingers!"Diddy said, surprised.

However the worst surprise was yet to come, as flying low over the tree-tops appeared a massive Zinger, a "King Zing," so to speak, that was easily the size of Gnawty. Adding to the badness, Necky popped its head out of the trees, by the army growing on the path.

"This is bad, right Diddy?" Raichu said, quite frightened at the sheer amount of enemies that were arrayed against them.

There was no answer. Surprised, Raichu turned, and saw that Diddy was no longer next to him.

"Diddy?" Raichu called out.

There was still no answer. Raichu turned around, and managed to catch a glimpse of Diddy's back, running on the path down to Donkey's cabin, before the chimp turned and vanished from sight, having maneuvered around the clearing, and trees now blocked his position.

"Uh guys…Diddy's gone," Raichu said, shocked.

"He's what?" Bario said, clearly surprised.

Before Raichu could respond, the horde of foes charged. The beavers waddled forward, while the aerial foes dived towards the Smashers.

The Smashers opened up with their projectiles, but the sheer number of enemies made their attacks moot, and Gnawty was leading the charge, his massive bulk absorbing most of the damage. Just as the Smashers were preparing for close-quarters combat, there was a terrible bellow, and something big, gray and fast came barreling out of the trees. Bario looked startled and his hand jerked back, like he was going to strike, but the creature was gone before he could.

The Smashers recoiled, certain that a new enemy had presented itself, but the creature ran past them, muscular legs tearing up the ground. The low-flying birds and bees turned around, heading back up, although a few were clipped and killed by the large bony protrusion on the creature's snout.

The beavers on the other hand had nowhere to go, and the gray animal shredded through them, and sent Gnawty tumbling into a tree where he lay unmoving. A few scattered beavers were left, and tried to reorganize, but the Smashers quickly finished them off.

The creature let loose another bellow and stopped. Now that it wasn't moving, it was clearly some kind of large rhinoceros. Necky fired a nut at the animal, but he jerked his large head forward and shattered it on his horn. Then, with barely a passing glance, the helpful animal tore through the trees and quickly vanished, leaving the Smashers alone with the much reduced enemy army.

Diddy was running. He stopped briefly outside D.K.'s house, and saw Funky inside, watching the battle. But Diddy didn't care about Funky at the moment, he was there for Meta.  
Meta was still unconscious, and despite Diddy's best efforts to rouse him, there was no reaction. Ignoring Cranky who was still writhing on the ground, Diddy yelled a couple of times to see if Meta would wake up. He soon realized that it wasn't working, and he didn't have a lot of time, so he started to go around Donkey's tree.

A purple light that he glimpsed at the corner of his eye caused him to stop and turn around, but with the exception of a slight twitch from Meta, everything was just like it was a few moments ago. Figuring that it was nothing, Diddy kept on.

Behind Donkey's tree were several branching paths that lead to the many cabins for the Kong family. Diddy continued on unhindered down the central path, and came to a stop outside a small cabin located on the ground, with a sign depicting his name over the door. He wasted no time entering.

On the inside was what one would expect to see in a sentient young chimp's home, bananas, stereo, cot, spare shirts, spare caps, guitar. Diddy rapidly switched his shirt and cap out for identical ones, since the ones he was wearing were getting kind of nasty and then grabbed his guitar.

It was a little bit longer than he was, and colored a bright red, with a star like style near the playing end. There was some yellow on it, and the guitar was very colorful. Additionally, it seemed to glisten with an almost metallic tinge. Diddy smiled upon getting it and slung it over his back, looping its strap around him so that he could run with it on him. And then he ran again.

The Smashers smiled as the seven of them faced Necky and Zing. The two animals gestured for their minions to attack, but the Smashers reacted quickly, and without the beavers to distract them on the ground, they were able to keep them at bay. Raichu's electrical attacks in particular were accurate and deadly, although he was still worried and confused about Diddy.

The vultures attempted to loop around the Smashers, but a flurry of attacks stopped them. The bees attempted to go around to the other side, but Link and Mario noticed and fired arrows and firebombs rapidly, downing many an oversized insect.

Things were definitely looking easy, until Necky started spitting nuts, followed by Zing, who was hovering just over the trees, shooting his stinger. Link managed to avoid one of the nuts, but another hit Kirby, knocking the puffball away. The stinger skimmed past Falco, opening up a shallow cut. A new stinger quickly grew back on Zing.

A loud guffaw was then heard, and Gnawty clambered back to his feet, his fur rippling and becoming a dark red color.

"He's still alive?" Link said, before angrily arming a bomb arrow and firing.

The arrow hit the ground and exploded, as Gnawty, being really naughty, had vanished. Or so it seemed.

"SCATTER!" Bario said, looking up to see the beaver coming down, his jumping prowess greatly increased.

They scattered, but the area they were in wasn't large, compared to the beaver who was in fact, very large. He didn't manage to land on anybody but the shockwave from his near miss sent the light Kirby, Raichu and Falco crashing to the ground.

Samus fired a yellow stun bolt at Gnawty, but the weak attack seemed to do no damage. He merely guffawed and tensed his legs for a second spring. However as he started to jump up, Mario slammed Gnawty in the chin with his hammer, causing him to fall back and land roughly on his furry back.

However before the others could capitalize on the attack, Necky and Zing fired several nuts and stingers, forcing the Smashers to retreat. There was a loud screeching and buzzing, and the aerial minions started to fly towards the Smashers, their sheer numbers compensating for their weakness.

Additionally, Gnawty, now really angry, clambered to his thick feet and started to leap again. The Smashers stepped back, nervous, now that over fifty enemies were flying at them, a giant rabbit-like beaver was stomping around like a deranged one-legged kitten, a massive vulture was launching walnuts at them, and a bee was shooting parts of its abdomen at them. Adding badness to the already bad situation, they were down Meta-Knight, who was currently unconscious, and Diddy who had run off. Basically, they were screwed.

Just as Gnawty leap into the air and the Smashers prepared themselves for the worst, a voice called out.

"RUN!"

Responding quickly the Smashers ran away from the attacking enemies, the familiar voice causing them to react before they could think. Just as they were realizing who had commanded them, Diddy leapt into the spot where the Smashers had been standing.

"Keep back!" He yelled as he removed his guitar from his back.

Gnawty was nearly on top of him, Necky and Zing had edged closer, and dozens of vultures and Zingers were flying at him. Staying calm Diddy strummed rapidly at his bizarre electric guitar. Almost immediately, something surprising happened.

"What the…?" Raichu said.

A large energy wave, in the general star-shape of the head of the guitar radiated outward from the guitar, smacking into Gnawty and effortlessly knocking him off balance and into a tree. The wave seemed to gain in strength the more Diddy played, and it flew on, crashing through the enemies, and Necky and Zing, sending both massive foes plummeting to the ground.

The Smashers saw the wave incoming and dove into the trees on the side of the path, ducking down. The wave passed over them, barely missing the top of Kirby, but strangely seemed to cause no harm to the surrounding area.

When the Smashers looked up they saw that Diddy was standing in the path, surrounded by the fallen bodies of the many enemies and Gnawty. Judging by the way that Gnawty wasn't breathing, he was probably dead. Necky and Zing were lying unmoving farther down the path. The wave had dissipated.

The Smashers slowly stepped out of the trees and back onto the path, where they slowly walked towards Diddy, who was watching Necky and Zing warily, his guitar was still in his hands.

"Diddy…what was that?" Raichu asked.

Diddy jumped and spun around, but when the words registered he relaxed and even managed a small smile.

"Just something I've been wanting to do for a while."

"So is that why you ran off?" Samus asked.

"Yep. Had to get my guitar."

"Well Diddy I'd give you a demerit in attendance, but a B in dramatic timing," Bario said with a grin.

"Just a B?" Diddy asked, smiling back.

"Well, we could have been closer to death."  
"Oh shut up," Raichu said.

While the others started to calm down, there was a loud squawking and Necky's head lifted up. The bird screeched and its skin turned a light purple. Necky made a harsh hacking sound and two large walnuts came flying out of the birds beak.

Link raised a shield to block one while Kirby jumped up. Kirby managed to avoid the one aimed at him, but Link was knocked over by the force of the blow. The Smashers started to aim their weapons, but a grating buzzing noise reached their ears, and a now red King Zing flew up and fired several stingers from around his body.

Mario managed to deflect one with his cape, while the others dodged them. Reacting quickly, Bario launched a magic ball that slammed solidly into the bee's head. It shrieked, and exploded…or at least it seemed to. When the smoke cleared, it was apparent that it had somehow split into four yellow bees and one red bee, all about the size of the original Zingers.

"What the?" Falco said, avoiding a trio of nuts from enraged Necky.

"Diddy…any advice?" Bario asked.

"Just hit them with whatever, they don't really have any weak points." Diddy responded, as King Zing dispatched the yellow bees at the Smashers.

The Zingers swirled and weaved and dodged, and flew rapidly towards the Smashers. The Smashers were almost in danger…if they sucked. Since the Smashers certainly did not suck, Diddy and Falco managed to kill one with a laser-peanut combo. The other three quickly fell to an arrow, a firebomb and a magic ball.

Necky fired four walnuts at once then, forcing the others to scatter, while King Zing dashed towards Diddy. He almost reached him too…but Diddy threw an orange grenade and it slammed into the enraged bee. The explosion engulfed him, and he was gone when it dissipated.

Necky let out a frightened screech when it saw that King Zing was dead. Letting loose a great hacking cough, Necky fired five walnuts, but they were easily avoided now that the bird was the only problem.  
The Smashers responded quickly to their sole remaining threat and launched their many projectiles at it. Necky shrieked, but seemed unable to retaliate…until it made a movement forward and shattered through the trees, revealing itself in all of its massive birdlike glory.

It looked very much like a humungous vulture, just with purple skin. It towered over the sizes of Gnawty and Zing, and the Smashers even took a frightened step back when confronted with its absurd height. It shrieked once again, opening its mouth wide as it expressed its fury…and that was when Diddy and Link threw their respective explosives in its mouth.

The beak slammed shut as soon as Necky felt something enter its mouth, and looked at the two in confusion as it cautiously swallowed. Diddy and Link were staring at each other, both startled about what the other did, a surprise shared by the other Smashers. Their confusion was abruptly halted when a muffled explosion sounded from Necky.

Returning their attention back to the bird the Smashers saw a hint of smoke leak from its beak, and then it collapsed, a large portion of its internal organs having turned into mush. It had died instantly. The Smashers had little time to view its carcass, as the bodies of the enemies, including that of Necky exploded into the healing pink dust. Relieved that they had defeated K. Rool's minions, the Smashers grinned and started to walk back to D.K's cabin, to try and plan out their next move.

"Nice move," Link said to Diddy.

"Thanks!" Diddy said, quite excited to be getting praise. Raichu grinned, glad that they weren't dead.

"It reminds me of this time I was battling a reptile guy, well you remember, you saw it…"

As Link regaled his exploits to Diddy and Raichu, and the closely following Samus, someone else was having a most unpleasant time…

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Meta-Knight woke up. Well, at least he thought he woke up, he wasn't actually sure. All he saw around him was black. He adjusted his mask and pulled out his sword and started to cautiously walk forward.

He was having difficulty remembering anything. Well, he could remember some things, but everything after arriving to Peach's Castle was a blank. He recalled that he was supposed to be very calm, collected, and prone to calling people "Fool," and remembered Kirby, and all those things…but everything recent was gone. He wasn't even sure how he knew that he knew that he had forgotten things…but he was quite sure that he knew.

"Where am I?" the masked warrior asked.

He wasn't expecting an answer. His expectations were wrong.

"Here," a strangely familiar…yet unfamiliar voice responded.

Meta spun around, but saw nothing.

"Where is here?" he asked nervously, raising his blade.

"Where you are," the voice answered unhelpfully.

Deciding that where wasn't exactly important, he changed his question.

"Who are you?"  
"I am me."

Meta growled a bit, frustrated, but unable to shake the growing sense of nervousness that was pervading through him.

"Fine. Be vague. Just show yourself!"  
"Why?"  
Startled by the question, Meta thought for a second, but he continued to slowly turn, trying to find the source of the voice.

"Because it is cowardly to hide yourself from me! Do you fear me?" Meta asked, his voice showing a confidence that he did not feel.  
"Perhaps I am not hiding. Perhaps it is you who is hiding. Perhaps you are afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Of what may find you."  
Meta-Knight almost scoffed, but he sensed a truth in the answer that frightened him.

"Who are you?" he asked again, hoping to get a different response.

"I am still me. A better question would be…Who are **you**?"  
Meta did not respond. He didn't want to play any clever word games with whoever he was speaking with…he had a bad feeling that he would lose. He thought he heard something to his left, and turned that way. He had the notion that he saw a glimpse of something and started to walk towards it, but it vanished quickly.

"Where are you?" Meta demanded.

"I am here."

"What do you want?"  
"I want what I want. It is what **you** want that is important."  
"I want to get out of here!" Meta said, noticing a dim light over to his right, and started running there.

"No. You don't."  
"Why not?" Meta asked, drawing closer to the light.

"Because then you'll be found." The voice answered simply.

"By what?"

"Does it matter? You don't want to be found."  
Meta stopped, trying to figure out what the voice meant. Despite the creepy sensation he was getting from the voice, he didn't feel like it was lying to him. He kept his eye on the dim light, noticing that part of the reason it seemed so dim was because of the purple color it had.

"If I don't want to get out of here then what do I want?"  
"I'll tell you one thing you want."

"Yes?"  
"You want to be not found."  
"That is really not helpful.

"It wasn't supposed to be helpful. Just true."

Meta glanced at the light again, thinking about moving faster and noticed he was closer to it than before. That wasn't a really big deal until he realized that he wasn't moving. The complete darkness he was in made it difficult to determine his speed, but he was pretty sure he was moving at a healthy clip of NOT MOVING AT ALL. And if he wasn't moving, that meant the light was.

"What is that light?" Meta asked, a tinge of nervousness in his voice.

"It's what is going to find you," his invisible companion informed him.

Suddenly deciding that he _really_ didn't want to meet the source of the light, Meta started to back away, but the light seemed to pick up speed. Meta considered standing his ground for a grand total of three seconds, before a wave of terror washed over him. Losing all of his courage, he spun around, leapt into the air and started to flap like a dog covered in very angry cats.

"Ooh…running won't help. It knows where you are, and you don't want to make it annoyed," the voice said.

"Annoyed? What about angry? Does it get angry?" Meta asked, sparing a glance behind him only to feel a fervent wish that he hadn't as the light had gotten considerably closer.

"Uh…well…no. I guess not. Doesn't really get angry."  
"Well, at least it can control its temper. Mind telling me what is chasing me?"  
"No."  
"What? Why not?" Meta said, adrenaline pumping through him, causing him to lose that aura of cool and calm that usually possessed him…that and recent memories were starting to come back…

"Hmm? Oh, I mean I don't mind."  
"Well that's a relief-AGH!" Meta broke off and made a sharp right turn, as something spiky had shot out from the purple light that was now right behind him. Unfortunately, he still had no idea what it was.

"Well? Tell me what it is!"

"Okay…but you won't like the answer." the voice said.

Meta had a very strong feeling that the voice wasn't lying. And at that moment he realized why the voice was so familiar…and so strange.

"Hey wait…you're-" Meta-Knight started to say, so shocked by the revelation that he actually dropped to the ground. Before he could finish the sentence there was a bright flash and the place he was in was suddenly brightly lit, a bright and blinding white. Well, at least it should have been blinding, but for some reason his large eyes had no problem adjusting. Which was rather unfortunate when you think about it.

He started to look behind him for the source of the purple light, but an object in front of him drew his attention first. It was surprisingly close, and was walking closer. Meta-Knight stared at the object, the being that had been the source of the voice. It stopped at around five feet from the masked knight, and Meta managed to croak out the end of his sentence.

"You're…me…"

The thing in front of him did indeed look exactly like him, and with the exception of the pitying look, it could have easily passed for Meta-Knight. It shook its body at his statement, and spoke to him like an adult speaking to a child.

"I'm afraid not. I am most certainly not you."  
"But…you look and sound…just like me!"  
"That is true, but you must conclude logically that I cannot be you."  
"How?" Meta asked, confused in a way that actually hurt.

"Because you are there, and I am here, and it is quite impossible for you to be in two places at once, let alone have a conversation with yourself. Unless of course you're insane. In that case I might very well be you. That would also mean that I am insane as well."

"What?"  
"Well, it is only logical. If you are insane, which you must be in order to talk with yourself, and if I am you, the only logical conclusion is that I am insane as well. How regrettable. I did so enjoy being sane."  
"I don't understand," Meta said.

"Oh. Well then you better not turn around. If you don't understand yourself, you'll never understand that."

At those words, Meta turned around and immediately wished he hadn't. He really should have listened to himself.

The source of the purple light was there, and was emanating from a large blob of a writhing boiling purple mass.  
"What?"

The mass started to disperse, creating purple tentacles that snaked towards Meta, revealing something beneath it, something more terrible, because of the lack of horror it inspired.

"Come to me," the being beneath the purple mass demanded.

"This is going to hurt isn't it?"  
"I would guess so," he told himself.

The purple tentacles wrapped themselves around Meta and dragged him towards their master. As Meta came closer, he asked one question.

"Who are you?"

The being seemed to consider the question, but seemed to decide the information would do no good.

"I am Kidar."

Meta let out a scream as he touched the being.

A universe away, and only a few centimeters away at the same time, Meta-Knight woke up.


	32. I like boats!

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Thirty-Two: I like boats!**

_**The Prison**_

Bowser came tumbling out of the portal that led back to the area where he and his villainous companions were keeping the other Smashers prisoner. He landed flat on his face, but managed to keep his grip on Game & Watch. As he clambered back to his feet a low chuckling entered his ears, a laugh that would usually cause small children to wet themselves. Repeatedly.

"What are you giggling about?" Bowser grumbled, holding the unconscious G&W.

"I'm not giggling!" Ganondorf said, momentarily peeved, but he managed to regain his composure, "I mean, I found your lack of grace with the portal amusing."

"Yeah, yeah. Is the cage ready for this guy?"

"Mewtwo just finished it. You and him are on guard duty for the next shift."  
"What? Not done yet?"  
"I got Donkey Kong, that stupid ape, now I just need Fox. Andross just called in, says he can help connect the portal right to him."

"Great. Remind me to be happy after I beat the crap out of this guy," Bowser said, squeezing slightly. Not hard, just enough to snap a normal persons spine.

Ganondorf took a step forward from the wall he was leaning on and took a closer look at Bowser. He grinned when he noticed the bruises and cuts on his body.

"Looks like you had some trouble," Ganondorf started to say, before Bowser interrupted him with a hasty "Shut up!"

"Fine, fine. Just having some fun. Andross is really excited about me taking Fox. He says with both him and Falco out his area, he'll have free reign."  
"I don't care. Mario and Luigi, and Yoshi and Peach are all technically out of _my_ area and I don't get to have free rampagey fun."

"I don't think rampagey is a word."  
"Still not caring."  
"Whatever. Just get Game and Watch in there, and watch those prisoners. Once Fox is here M.C. wants us to start the rounds."

"What about Mario and the others?"

"K. Rool just called in. He said that a large portion of his army was just wiped out. In between his shrieking I managed to pick up that Diddy was there, so I would assume they're all there. Hopefully he will be able to stop their foolish quest."

"They're with Rool? What happened to Prime?"

"We've lost all contact with that area. I would have to assume that they killed it."

"And M.C. still says they're not a threat?" Bowser asked, incredulous.

"He claims that taking care of the ones we have here is more important."

Bowser growled at that, then noticed Game & Watch was twitching. Turning his attention back towards Ganondorf, he dealt with the awakening 2-D man with a quick blow to the head.

"He can't believe that. Those guys wiped out a huge chunk of both of our armies, and we're getting nothing from Zebes. Rool won't be able to take them on without us."

"Whether he believes it or not is irrelevant. He's made it very clear that he doesn't want to focus a lot of force on these guys."  
"Why not? K. Rool, me, you and Two could take all nine of them out if we tried, and M.C. could probably beat them by himself."

"I can't guess what exactly he's planning, but it almost seems like he wants them to get here, like he wants them to kill all of the guys we're working with…one at a time."  
"That's crazy!"  
"Maybe. Either way, I better get going," Ganondorf said, abruptly changing the subject.

"Hey! What-" Bowser started to say, before he got the feeling he was being watched. Catching on, he nodded and dragged G&W into the cage room. Ganondorf gave one look around, his gaze lingering on the screen, before jumping into the portal. It made a faint whoosh sound, and the evil warlord was gone.

_**Kong Island**_

The Smashers headed back towards D.K.'s cabin, and Funky, the only sane member of D.K.'s family left behind. They were experiencing the slight high that people get after winning a battle. The adrenaline was wearing down, and they were quite relaxed, which was a feeling they hadn't felt in a long time. Link was in the middle of regaling those listening with his exploits, and several others were quietly thinking about their reasons for fighting.

For most of them, the reasons were simple. Link fought because he thought it was the right thing, same for Kirby and Mario. Falco and Samus originally fought for money, but now believe that they too are doing what is morally just. Raichu, Diddy, Meta and Bario can all be classified under the class of doing it because it is right.

But are those the main reasons? Are they even the primary reasons? Perhaps a look beyond the shell, the façade these people put forth could reveal more about them.

Link is clearly the epitome of hero. He fights to save the little man, and rescue princesses, well at least one princess, and now he fights to stop evil from dominating all that he and everyone else knows. Yet, part of him fights because he enjoys the combat, the pain. He works hard at being the best he can be, and he IS the best fighter, or at least, one of them. Fighting and adventures are all he knows. If he no longer entered into glorious battle, what could he do? Be a farmer? Pshaw! No, Link would be lost without his quests. But surely another reason could be found to further support his life-choice.  
Revenge comes to mind. Ganondorf is evil, and has set himself up to be Link's antithesis. He has done his best from preventing Link from ever pursuing a normal life. That alone would give Link cause to hate the man, and do his best to defeat and kill him.

Yet, another, perhaps more obvious reason exists. After all, what man, even one as young as Link, wouldn't want a beautiful princess? He can't impress her with riches, or elegance, or even sheer dashing charm. No matter how brilliant his personality is, it would mean nothing to one of the ruling leaders of his homeland, considering he comes from such a meager background. He can however impress her with his exploits, his heroic deeds, and impress her he has. It is one of the cases where the man does get the girl; at least he would if she wasn't being kidnapped all the time. But what about the very knowledge of being a hero?

Link may not even realize how important being a hero is to him. Being a hero has made him an icon, and being an icon has done more good for Link than even he knows…for all it would have taken was a slight push in a different direction…and Link would be the one attempting to rule all worlds…

The group of cheerful heroes reached the foot of the tree where the cabin was…and noticed Meta-Knight climbing to his feet. The others let out strangled gasps of surprise before running towards him.

"Meta! Are you okay?" Diddy asked.

Meta stared at Diddy for a long moment. Link felt a quiver of excitement, certain that Meta would reveal something about Bario that would make his suspicions justified.  
"Uh...guys, remember last time, when he went crazy? Maybe we should back off," Falco suggested.

Before the others could agree, Meta cleared his throat.

"I'm fine. Don't we have something to do?"

While the others stared in shock at his nonchalant response, Meta flew up to the top of the tree, and into the cabin.

"What…just happened?" Falco asked.

"I have…no idea," Link said, having not expected that particular outcome.

Before anyone could go up the ladder after Meta, he came flying back down and landed gracefully a few feet away from his companions. His arrival was followed by loud grunting as Funky leapt down from the top of the tree and rolled to a stop, not nearly as gracefully, but at least he managed to stand up afterwards.

"Hey!" Funky said cheerfully, waving his orange grenade launching log at them.

"Uh…hey," Samus said.

"You guys managed to fight off K. Rool's lackeys! Cool!"  
"Yeah…now what?" Diddy asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Bario asked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Link asked.

"We have to kill K. Rool." Bario responded.

The others paused for a second, but the idea was pretty much the next logical step so they all agreed pretty readily.

"I readily agree with that," Raichu said.

"Where is he?" Samus asked, focusing on their next challenge.

"If you follow the path it will lead to the ocean, and down there is K. Rool's ship. Good luck after that," Funky told them.

"Thanks," Bario said, "I guess there isn't any reason to stay here…let's get going."

"What about Meta-Knight?" Link asked, pointing at the conscious combatant.

"What about me? I'm fine. Let's go," Meta said in an irritated voice.

Link growled, but couldn't think of anything implicating Bario in Meta's new state…maybe he was wrong about him…

"Let's just go," Samus said, noticing that Link was going to cause more problems and without anymore ado, the Smashers left down the path, while Funky watched the empty cabin.

The Smashers talked along the way. They basically grilled Diddy, trying to get an idea of how K. Rool would fight and then they would discuss strategies on what to do on that. Diddy was confident in their success however, since he and Donkey could beat Rool on their own, so all nine of them should be able to annihilate the guy…

Link was indifferent. From what he had heard, K. Rool was like a bumbling baddie, similar to Bowser, but lacking even that beast's competency. No, he was sure they would wipe the floor with Rool…but despite that thought, Link couldn't shake the feeling that something very bad was happening as they walked. Something that was building to some kind of terrible event. This feeling had been growing in Link ever since he signed on to help Mario and the others guard Peach's castle, but it's taken him this long to figure out what was causing the sensation of premonition.

Fear. His stomach clenched with a crippling terror for every moment that passed, and the only reason he wasn't collapsing from the feeling was because of the Triforce of Courage he had. A third of a powerful mystical item, with the other two pieces belonging to Zelda and Ganondorf. The Triforce of Courage obviously gave him a healthy supply of extra courage, and considering he had plenty already made him a pretty courageous guy…and it was probably because of that Courage piece of the Triforce that he was feeling this gut-clenching fear. The piece probably was trying to warn him about something, but he hadn't had enough time to figure it out since the whole adventure started. And before he could figure it out now, they reached the end of the path.

The Smashers were on a long beach that seemed to curve around the entire island. The beach had shiny yellow sand, and tapered off into a clear blue ocean. The ocean was very large, considering it was an ocean and not a pond, the fact that it was large is not very surprising. There were no additional land masses in sight, although there was a rather large ship. The ship was leaning on one side of the beach, its other side floating in relatively shallow water.

It looked like a yacht posing as a pirate vessel. Its light brown boards were shiny and unmarked, and it bore crisp clean looking sails, leading up to a crow's nest that appeared to have some kind of black mass in it, although what it was wasn't very clear.

Deciding to not waste time examining the pristine vessel, the Smashers climbed up a side-ladder and set foot on a rather large main deck. The Smashers stuck close together and readied their weapons, but the ship seemed quite abandoned…until a maniacal laughing was heard.

Following the laughing came a loud banging noise, and the creator of both of these irritating sounds was soon evident when a wooden door inset in the raised section of the ship under the ship's wheel burst open and a large creature came out of a crouching position and stood before the Smashers, laughing like an ill-natured hyena.

The creature was big, larger than Bowser, and towered over the Smashers. He was about double the size of Link or Samus, and his massive girth made him appear much larger. His body shape seemed to be that of a bipedal crocodile, although his was quite fat. His skin was mostly a dark green hue, but his chest and belly appeared to have been coated with a shiny yellow armor. The same material was used to create a tall crown with many pointed tops on his head and thick wrist braces on either hand. Rounding out this strange creature was a long flowing crimson cape and one bloodshot eye that was larger than the other. This than, was King K. Rool.

"So the monkey and his friends dare to confront me?" he bellowed at them, "Well good! I am tired of stealing your bananas, and I look forward to…uh…crushing you! HA! HA! HA!"

Link sighed and shook and his head, causing K. Rool to stop laughing at stare at Link in confusion  
"What? Do you no longer wish to battle me? King K. Rool!"

"That's not it," Link said. At Rool's and Link's companions' evident confusion, Link extrapolated.

"See, this is the part where you tell us how we'll never beat you and how you're the greatest guy to ever walk the earth. Believe me, I've sat through enough of those on this adventure so far, and I would appreciate it if you just started fighting."  
"But…you **will** never beat me," Rool said dejectedly, "Do you all agree with him?"  
There was a flurry of yes's and nods. Link was actually surprised this was working, he was trying to be sarcastic, but apparently Rool wasn't very bright.

"Crud. That's my favorite part about being evil. Oh well. TAKE THIS!" Rool shouted, plucking his crown from the top of his head and launching it at Link.

Link quickly raised his shield, but the crown was heavier than he expected, and the blow knocked him over. Before the others could react, the crown came flying back, clipping Diddy in the back, which sent him forward a bit, and landing gracefully back on Rool's head.

Rool laughed again as Link scrambled to his feet, considerably upset. The Smashers aimed their weapons at the large lizard, but he charged forward as they fired.  
The Smashers fired their weapons, but only Link and Mario managed to deal glancing blows before Rool was upon them, his great bulk belying his incredible speed. He used his size to send Diddy, Falco and Samus all flying, while the others rolled or leapt out of the way.

The Smashers regrouped away from Rool as he continued laughing, and several of them looked pretty battered already. Diddy was clutching his side, and wasn't actually looking at his foe, as he was trying to get over the pain. Rool stopped laughing and stared at them, his right eye twitching and his cape billowing behind him as he stood by the edge of the ship.

He crouched down, clearly preparing to attack again, when a splash was heard and something came flying out of the water behind him. He started to turn, but wasn't fast enough to stop the blue fish-like creature from stabbing him in the lower back with its sword like nose. Rool shrieked and threw a punch at the creature, but it was already diving back into the water. It vanished as quickly as it came.

"What was that?" Falco asked.

"What was what? What happened?" Diddy asked, but Rool was already charging again, despite the obvious pain he was in.

Rather than avoiding him, Mario, Link, Bario, and Meta all raised their weapons and ran to meet him, and they were joined by Diddy who was wielding his guitar.

Rool stopped as Link stabbed towards his stomach, but the glistening armor there deflected the attack and Link was knocked off balance. Before Rool could take advantage of that, Bario swung both swords at Rool from opposite directions, and the tyrant was forced to block them with the golden bracelets on his wrists.

Rool then used his superior strength to push Bario away, just in time to move his head back to avoid a swing from Meta, but Mario's hammer managed to connect solidly on one of Rool's short, stubby legs.

Rool yelped and stepped back, yelping again when he moved his injured foot, and then had his face slammed with Diddy's surprisingly painful guitar. Rool yelped yet again, and then leapt back, causing his attackers to miss with their subsequent attacks.

Samus, Falco, and Raichu started firing their projectiles, while Kirby pulled out his Cutter blade, but Rool suddenly leapt into the air, and his massive weight crashing down jerked the entire ship and the Smashers almost fell into each other.

From the upper deck of the ship seven large cannonballs came rolling down, each one about as large as a full grown human. The Smashers attempted to react quickly to them, but Falco and Mario were both hit quite solidly and ended up nearly pitched overboard. The rest of the group managed to avoid them until they rolled off the edge of the ship.

Link was irritated by Rool being slightly more difficult than anticipated and started to run towards him again, when Rool suddenly leapt forward. Link stopped in surprise, but when the hop ended abruptly he started to move again, until Rool did it again, leaping right over the startled Link's head and landing behind him, where a solid backhand from Rool sent Link tumbling.

Before Rool could continue his assault, Kirby slashed at him with his Cutter blade. The blade, although blunt, still left a slight groove along his arm. Rool grabbed Kirby before the puffball could continue the attack, but Diddy threw an orange grenade that exploded right into K. Rool's crocodilian jaw.  
Rool let out a strangled gasp, released Kirby and fell flat to the ground.  
"What?" Diddy said, knowing that Rool wasn't that weak.

The others warily gathered around Rool, and were unsure of what to do, until Bario said that they should shoot or stab him a few times, before they could say he was dead. Before they could follow through with that, Rool suddenly leapt up, flinging his large arms outward and sending the Smashers sprawling.

"Ha! You fell for it!" he said, quite pleased with himself, but that satisfaction quickly turned to fear when he saw them getting back up, "Uh…on second thought…bye!" Rool declared before running to the side of the ship that was grounded and jumping off.

"Don't let him run, get that stupid reptile!" Link yelled.

Before the others could give chase to the rapidly running K. Rool, who was dashing through the jungle, there was a rustling from the crow's nest, and the Smashers turned to see something moving up there. They backed away, towards the ocean…only to hear something coming out of the water as well…

So there is Link, Hyrule's savior, the Hero of Time. There he is, stuck with people who, in their own ways are as heroic as him, traveling in a land completely unfamiliar to him, battling against foes who make less sense than the usual ones he faces. There he stands, but perhaps for the first time…he stands not alone against his enemies. The question remains however…is that a good thing?


	33. Birds and Blades

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Thirty-Three: Birds and Blades make a most interesting combination…**

_**Somewhere in the Lylat System…**_

Space. Impossibly vast no matter what dimension you're in. Seemingly empty, there is a surprisingly large amount of objects and items stashed away in space, planets, stars…more planets…and other planetoid…things. Oh! And ships! There are indeed several ships flying through space right now…perhaps they should be called…spaceships! Ha! What a clever name. Speaking of ships in space…spaceships, one was flying through it right now.

It was large, gray and looked vaguely beat up, like it was used as some kind of platform for intense combat for nine years. It featured a long pointed bridge, and gradually sloped and widened towards the back, revealing four spread out "wings" and a powerful engine. Beneath the bridge, and connected to the area by the engine were several large powerful guns, and right above those was some kind of hangar entrance. This then was the Great Fox.

The inside of the Great Fox was considerably better furnished than the outside, but maintained a simple gray color scheme, with the necessary shiny switches and buttons that all spaceships must have.  
Not surprisingly, Fox McCloud was piloting the Great Fox, and helping him out were members of the Star Fox crew, of which Falco is a member of.

Fox was an anthropomorphic fox, and it is a trait shared by all members of the Star Fox universe: They are bipedal animals, with human-like characteristics. Fox was clad in a green vest, with combat boots and pants, a look that was basically identical to that of Falco and the other members of this team. Fox was also carrying similar versions of the weapons that Falco had taken with him.

The oldest member of the team, Peppy Hare, was busy sleeping in a corner of the bridge, his most noticeable aspect being that he had the head of a rabbit. Weird.

The most useless member of the team, which is saying a lot, since Peppy doesn't do much, Slippy Toad possessed a squat…toad like, body and an annoyingly high-pitched voice. Slippy was tinkering around with a large machine that Fox and Falco had placed on the right side of the bridge for the sole purpose of keeping the toad busy.  
The newest member, Krystal, was a blue fox…vixen…girl…person, clad in a blue suit that managed to reveal considerably more than you'd suspect. Krystal was not really getting a lot done either as she was standing quite close to Fox, who was attempting to focus on his mission.

The final remaining member, R.O.B. was controlling the navigation. ROB was replacing his replacement, ROB 64, a more advanced robot that unfortunately suffered a tinkering session from Slippy and was currently in the process of exploding in the cargo hold of the ship, a process that had been going on for several days.

R.O.B. was a simple looking robot, mostly white, but his arm-pincher things were red, and his treads that he used to maneuver were black as was the front of his rectangular head. His large round eyes made him seem friendly, which was interesting considering he was incapable of actual emotion.

"Krystal, any new information from the General?" Fox asked, nudging her a bit towards the communication center of the control panel.

"What? Oh…no," she said, having been temporarily stunned by Fox's…foxiness, which is a description usually applied towards females, but considering Fox was a fox, it probably didn't detract from his masculinity.

"Alright, well if what he said before is still correct, Andross is attacking Corneria, so R.O.B., set us for there."

R.O.B. made a beeping noise and started tapping buttons.

Fox turned the yoke, and the Great Fox, having finished destroying a pack of Andross's thugs, turned towards Corneria. It was about to shoot forward, when an explosion occurred down by the engines, and the Great Fox tilted greatly to the left.

"What the heck?" Fox shouted, turning the controls hard to compensate.

"What was that?" Krystal shouted back.

"I don't know, check the screens to see what hit us!" Fox told her.

"The explosion was internal," Slippy said, sticking his head out of the machinery he was destroying.

"What? How can you tell?" Fox asked, turning away from the controls for a second to look at the toad.

"Because that flashing light over there means an internal explosion by the hangers," Slippy calmly said, before literally diving back into his hunk of worthless metal.

"Hmph. Even though you're useless, you still have some use," Fox, ignoring the fact that his statement was illogical.

"So what now?" Krystal asked.

"I guess I investigate to try and see what the problem is," Fox said.

"Oh. Be careful," Krystal said.

"Why? Is your limited psychic power giving you a warning?" Fox asked.

"Huh? Oh…no…I mean yes! Danger is near! Beware!"  
"You know, sometimes you sound like some kind of food product that predicts ones fortune," Fox said with a grin, "Well, after I leave, lock down this area until I come back, who knows what could have happened."

As if to punctuate his statement, a loud banging was heard, closer to the bridge.  
"Bye!" Fox said, pulling out his gun.

"Bye…" Krystal said, doing her best to be worried.

As Fox walked towards the door, Peppy woke up and grabbed Fox's hand as he walked past.

"FOX!" Peppy said, looking quite upset.

"What? What is it Peppy?"  
"Do a barrel roll!"  
"Uh…thanks. Goodbye now," Fox said, before yanking his hand back and quickly exiting the door. Peppy stared at him for a moment before collapsing back into sweet dreamland.

R.O.B. tapped a button and the large metal doors slammed down, protecting the bridge from whatever was attacking the ship, and preventing Fox from making a quick return.

Fox slowly walked through the empty chambers of the Great Fox. It really wasn't as big as it looked from the outside, the majority of the internal space was dedicated to generators and equipment, but there were living quarters for everyone, about the size of small bedrooms, a kitchen, an eating area, an infirmary, several spare rooms, etc. Fox quickly checked each of those rooms, but found nothing, as he expected.

Hearing the banging noises continue, still in the direction of the hangar, Fox climbed into the small elevator the Great Fox has to make traveling between floors easier. Hitting the button for the bottom floor, Fox checked his gun again, and as soon as the doors opened he rolled out, gun aimed at…nothing.

Sighing, Fox lowered his weapon, but looked around the small room he was in carefully. Besides a few pipes there was nothing to hide behind, and the room was well-lit so he could see that there was nothing behind the pipes.  
Fox stepped towards the gray door that led to the hangar, and with a trio of quick taps on a nearby number pad, the door slid upwards.

This room had plenty of places to hide. It was easily the largest room in the ship; after all it had to hold the five Arwings the Star Fox crew needed.

Fox looked around, quickly locating the source of the explosion: Peppy's Arwing had gone boom, probably because the old fart hasn't used it in years.

Fox went over to the smoking mess. A spark from the worn control panel had probably gotten to fuel tanks or something stupid like that…Fox paused and put his gun away, not wanting to waste his time with this, but he knew he had to at least check what the problem was.

He turned towards the starry sky outside the large opening the Arwings used to fly out of the ship. The only thing protecting Fox from sucking vacuum was a force field designed to keep the atmosphere in the ship. Fox was glad it was there, but it did have the unfortunate side effect of making the stars kind of fuzzy, marring an otherwise beautiful view.

Sighing again Fox turned to the Arwing…and froze. Looking closely at the damage, it didn't look like the fuel tank exploded…rather it looked like someone had **punched** it. But that was impossible...who could do that much damage with a punch?

A sudden noise behind Fox caused him to yank out his gun and whirl around…only to see a screw spinning on the ground. Confused Fox stared at it for a second, before a second screw landed near the first.

Catching on Fox looked up…and used a Fox Illusion ability to dash ten feet in an instant…just in time to avoid a metal beam crashing to the ground where he was a second ago. Closely following the beam was a large armored man with green skin, who dropped gracefully from his perch on the ceiling.

"Nice move. You might be a tricky one to bag," the man said with a wry grin.

"Who…wait…Ganondorf?" Fox said, remembering when of his fellow competitors, "What are you doing here?"

"Orders Fox. I was ordered to bring you in."  
"Ordered? By who?"  
"Don't worry yourself with that, you'll be seeing him soon enough."  
"Don't kid yourself, I did better than you in the tournament."  
"Surely you haven't forgotten we were equalized there? Here…I have no restrictions," Ganondorf said confidently, a dark purplish glow emanating from his hands.  
Fox gulped, but moved his body into a fighting stance.

"You can't do anything, my crew will hear us fighting and come down, and you can't take them all on."  
"Well, I probably could…but that isn't necessary," Ganondorf said, before shooting a blast of dark magic from his hand.

Fox ducked, but the magic missile whizzed past him and slammed into a control panel, destroying it, and causing the only door out of the hangar to slam shut.

"I'm not going down without a fight," Fox said.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Ganondorf responded, still grinning.

Fox fired his gun at Ganondorf but the evil king leapt over it and came down with his foot aflame. Fox rolled to the left and came up firing, but Ganondorf ignored the attack and charged forward, hitting Fox with his shoulder and sending the lighter combatant rolling.

Fox leapt to his feet quickly, and with another Fox Illusion managed to dash into Ganondorf hard enough to stun the powerful warrior. Fox took advantage of that to unleash a spinning kick into his face, causing Ganondorf to jerk back, and hit Fox with an open palm charged with dark magic. The blow sent Fox reeling.

Ganondorf wiped his chin, his grin still there but fading.

"Got in a few lucky blows there Fox."  
"Let's hope they weren't that lucky."  
Ganondorf dived forward, foot extended and covered in purple flame, but Fox sidestepped it and snapped a high kick as Ganondorf recovered. Ganondorf took the blow, and tried to respond with one of his own, but Fox dodged and dealt a flurry a minor punches and kicks that sent Ganondorf back.

Ganondorf leapt over Fox and slammed both feet down, catching Fox in the back and sending him sprawling. Fox kicked out his legs as he got up, but Ganondorf merely hopped over those and smacked Fox with another open palm.

Fox rolled again, and got up, a little slower this time and panting.

"Getting tired?"  
"Not yet," Fox said, leaping back and firing several lasers from his gun.

Growling Ganondorf charged forward, hoping to hit Fox with another shoulder ram and doing his best to ignore the minor pain he was suffering from the pistol. Fox leapt over the expected ram however and charged up and unleashed a powerful Fire Fox attack, which utilized an interesting bit of jet technology to shroud Fox in a flame like cocoon before shooting him off in a direction he chose, which in this case was the direction Ganondorf happened to be in.

The attack slammed into his chest and sent him sliding back a ways, actually forcing him to his knees. Fox leapt back off Ganondorf and faced him cautiously, gun raised.

Ganondorf slowly stood, and stared Fox in the face.

"You are good, but I should end this sooner, rather than later."  
"You seem pretty confident," Fox said, seeming a bit more cocky now than he was a few moments ago.

"This fight is over," Ganondorf said, charging up another dark magic ball.

Fox fired a pistol shot, but Ganondorf launched his attack which blew through Fox's weak laser and slammed into his chest where it knocked him flat on his back.

Before Fox could get up, Ganondorf dealt a hard kick into his ribs, and sent him rolling. Fox tried to get up, but as he was starting to stand, Ganondorf dashed forward, grabbed Fox's head and sent a pulse of dark magic through it before slamming him back into the ground.

"Done Fox?"

Fox looked up at Ganondorf, clearly beaten and exhausted.

"Not yet," he said, before aiming and firing his gun…and the bolt missed Ganondorf completely.

"You missed Fox…wait," Ganondorf stopped, "You weren't aiming for me were you?"  
Fox nodded. Ganondorf spun around to see that Fox's shot had fried another control panel, and it didn't take long to realize what this one controlled.

With a slight crackle, the field protecting the hangar from the depths of space disappeared, and an enormous force started to yank out everything that wasn't attached as the hangar depressurized. Fox slowly started to slide towards death as he scrabbled to hold on to grooves in the floor. Fortunately for him, air was still being pumped into the hangar, but pretty soon he'd be sucking vacuum so that wouldn't matter.

"You fool, I am far heavier than you. What did you hope to accomplish?" Ganondorf laughed, while standing completely upright and seemingly unfazed by the whole ordeal.

"This," Fox said, as the largest thing not nailed, screwed or magnetized down in the hangar slammed into Ganondorf's face: The metal beam he tried to knock Fox out with earlier.

With a low grunt of surprise Ganondorf lost his grip on the floor and went tumbling out the right side of the hangar. Fox tried to grab onto one of the strapped down Arwings, aware that he was about to die shortly, although if what he had found out about Ganondorf was true, his life was worth it to kill Ganondorf.

He lost his grip on the Arwing and followed Ganondorf to his doom …or at least that's what he thought until a muscular armored arm grabbed his leg with nearly enough force to break it as he flew out the hangar.

"What?" Fox managed to get out with his last breath.

Ganondorf had grabbed onto the side of the hangar with one hand, and was using his other to prevent Fox from tumbling off into space. He was rapidly running out of air though, and with a quick gesture he created a portal around himself and the barely conscious Fox, taking the two of them to where the captured Smashers were trapped…and leaving the remainder of the Star Fox crew clueless about what had just happened…

_**On K. Rool's Ship…**_

The Smashers were backing away as the dark mass on the top of the crow's nest slowly moved out and looked down at them. This was shortly followed by a quiet splash as something came out of the water behind them. While this was happening Falco was pondering what exactly had brought him to this point and time.

He was here because he volunteered to help guard Peach's Castle. He volunteered because Fox couldn't, as Fox had to stay because Andross had been acting up. But why exactly would Falco think that Bowser would be more pressing than Andross? Couldn't he assume that everyone else could worry about themselves, and he would worry about his problems?  
No. He couldn't. He used to, but after failing to solve his problems by himself, he slowly learned that he needed help. And the best way to get help was to help others. While Falco knew that the villains were bad news, and the fact that Master Hand had somehow organized them could spell doom for everyone, he couldn't stop thinking about how much he really enjoyed being in the thick of things, getting his feathers dirty.

That's why he signed up for the Star Fox job in the first place. He was a good pilot, there were bad guys, and he really wanted to lay the smackdown on some people. Now his primary reason was because he wanted there to be peace, but he knew that even if there was peace he would still crave action. After all…that's why he came to the Melee tournament.

Besides, he figured if he helped these guys take out their worst enemies, maybe they'd help him and Fox finish Andross off once and for all. One could hope…

A sudden shriek from above put a halt to Falco's pondering as the creature took flight, revealing that the beast residing in the crow's nest was in fact, a crow. Or Krow, as it happened to be named. It was very large, about the size of Gnawty, and had a bald vulture-like head topped with a black pirate hat, with a skull and crossbones emblazoned it.

Other than the size, head and hat, Krow looked very much like a typical oversized pirate vulture bird thing, with wings, talons and a pointy beak. The only other thing of note was the large eggs that had been completely hidden by Krow that were stashed away in the Krow's nest.

The Smashers aimed their weapons as Krow flew overhead, but Samus, Link and Falco turned around to face the thing that was floating up out of the ocean.

Thing was accurate as what was floating to face the Smashers wasn't exactly the creature…it was a massive sword. It was about 8 feet long, and was curved like a scimitar. Its hilt was composed of a skull and crossbones insignia, only it was actually made out of a skull and bones. The end of the hilt had a large glowing green jewel.

"Kleever and Krow!" Diddy said in surprise.

"You know these guys?" Falco asked.

"Yeah, I beat them a long time ago."

"Anything interesting we should know?" Bario asked, as Kleever floated around the Smashers and Krow flapped around its eggs.

"Just watch out for fireballs and eggs," Diddy said, while pulling out his peanut popguns.

"Fireballs? From the Krow?" Falco asked.

His question was answered when Kleever swiped the air in front of itself, shooting out a light orange ball of fire. It was about the size of Mario's firebomb's, but a lighter color, and considerably slower. Diddy dodged it with ease and it fizzled harmlessly against the deck of the ship.

Diddy fired a few peanuts at Kleever but they bounced harmlessly off its hard metal body. Link and Mario fired their attacks, and they seemed to cause a bit more damage, but Kleever glowed red and sliced at Link, who tried to block the massive floating sword with his shield, but ended up careening to the deck.

Falco pulled out his gun, only to have a massive egg crash to the ground next to him. It split open, revealing itself to be empty.

"Agh! Eggs!" Falco said, turning to Krow who was picking up another egg in its talons.

"I told you!" Diddy said, dodging a wild swing from Kleever.

Krow was about to drop the egg when Falco began shooting at it. Krow screeched and tried to avoid the attacks, but the egg slowed it down. Seeing no other option Krow dropped the egg where it barely missed Bario, who was firing magic balls at Kleever.

Kleever was glowing red constantly and firing fireballs and sword swings like crazy, narrowly missing Samus who was sorely missing her Power Suit. Meanwhile Krow was missing with his eggs as Kirby missed reaching the oversized bird with a flurry of punches. Lots of missing was going on.

Kleever shuddered from a bomb arrow from Link, followed by an orange grenade from Diddy. It shot forward, scraping Diddy, but missing, and that's when Raichu hit it with a small bolt of lightning.

The lightning quickly coursed through Kleever's metal body, and in seconds it exploded.

A particularly painful slice from the flying Meta-Knight caused Krow to dive headfirst into the mast, knocking off the remaining eggs. Diddy and Kirby were both hit hard to fall to the deck of the ship, but the others managed to avoid them.  
Krow flapped wildly, attempting to stay aloft, but Samus fired a whip of energy from her gun that latched onto the weakened Krow and dragged him down low enough for her to kick the bird in the face. It shrieked and flapped off the side of the boat, where it collapsed into the water.

It tried to stay afloat, but its birdly body was not designed for swimming, and Krow quickly sank.  
"Well that was a surprisingly quick fight," Falco said.

At that moment a transparent creepy version of Krow exploded out of the water and shrieked at the Smashers.

"What the? Some kind of ghost?" Link said, quite surprised.

"What's going on?" Diddy asked, trying to get the large egg off himself.

Before the battle could begin again, a bright green parrot flew from the direction of the jungle and began firing large yellow eggs from its mouth. Krow shrieked again, and flapped off farther into the ocean, chased by the squawking parrot.

"That was weird." Raichu said.

"What happened?" Diddy said, after Kirby helped him up.

Before his question could be answered, the sound of several whirling blades could be heard as a massive vehicle flew towards them…


	34. Reptiles make…interesting pirates

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Thirty-Four: Reptiles make…interesting pirates**

_**The Prison…**_

The portal opened up, disgorging Ganondorf and Fox, both of whom landed hard on the ground, and sucked out a good chunk of the air in the room before Ganondorf raised his hand and closed it.

"What the distended Koopa shells was that?" a considerably startled Bowser choked out after air returned to his lungs.

"That was this one's attempt to kill me," Ganondorf said, shaking the unconscious Fox a bit.

"Did he succeed?" Bowser asked.

Ganondorf stared at him.

"What? Oh."  
"Let's just pretend you didn't ask me that. Is a cage ready for him?"  
"Yeah, it's been ready for a while."

Ganondorf dragged the beaten Fox to the door, and forced it open. Inside Mewtwo was fortifying Captain Falcon's cage, as the man had been trying to Falcon Punch it open.

"Ganondorf! You won't get away with this!" Zelda shouted.

"Already did, princess. Mewtwo! Where's this one's cage?"  
Mewtwo pointed to a cell farther down the area. Ganondorf dragged Fox down the aisle, drawing many gasps from the prisoners as they saw another companion join their unhappy group.

"Oh man, Fox too? I told you! We're doomed!" Ness wailed.

"Shut up!" Falcon shouted, "We're not doomed. Falcon Punch!"

Captain Falcon's hand glowed red, and a fiery image of a bird appeared suddenly as he let loose a powerful punch at the door of his prison. Before the attack could connect he was halted and flung hard into the other end of his cage by Mewtwo's psychic powers.

"Pika! Pika!" Pikachu shouted, shooting bolts of lightning that couldn't travel past the bar of his cage.

"Stop trying, it's useless," Bowser growled, breathing fire at Pikachu, forcing him to back off from the front of his cage.

With casual disregard for his captured prisoner, Ganondorf threw Fox into the cage and slammed the door shut. Fox groaned, but otherwise remained still. Ganondorf frowned at Zelda as he walked out, but she merely ignored him and focused on a glowing light in her hands.

"There's nothing you can do, so you may as well give up," Ganondorf told her.

"You'll see!" Zelda said, before returning her attention to whatever it was she was doing.

With an uninterested grunt Ganondorf walked out of the prison, closely followed by Mewtwo and Bowser. As Bowser left, he slammed the door, trapping the Smashers again, with only themselves for company.

In the portal room Ganondorf stopped near the center and faced Mewtwo.

"Now what?"

"Why do you ask me?" Mewtwo said…or more accurately "thought."

"Because apparently you're M.C.'s favorite now. Do you know what we do with them?" Ganondorf growled, gesturing at their prisoners.

"For now we wait. M.C. should be contacting us soon, but I can already assume what he'll have us do with them.

"Start the battles?" Ganondorf said.

"I still don't get that," Bowser groaned.

"I'm not too sure myself why we force them to fight, there is no logical reason," Mewtwo said.

"I'm sure M.C. has his reasons," Ganondorf said, "Speaking of reasons…what are yours?" Ganondorf asked pointedly.

"What?" Mewtwo asked, confused by the question. On any other being he would merely probe their mind, which would normally eliminate the need for asking clarifying questions but Ganondorf had an exceptionally strong will, making mental probes nigh impossible.

"Your reasons for fighting for M.C. Mine are obvious, I want to stand next to the ruler of all worlds, as does Bowser-"

At that Bowser grunted, but didn't say anything. Ganondorf paused to see if Bowser would follow that grunt with anything, and when he didn't, he seemed to have trouble considering where to pick up his questioning.

"My reasons for fighting?" Mewtwo asked for clarification.

At a nod from Ganondorf Mewtwo began to speak.

"They are quite simple. I want to free the Pokémon in my dimension from their continued imprisonment by the humans, and by extension, rule them as their leader."  
"So the classic 'I'm fighting for others,' but you mix it up by making sure you stay on top. Never figured you for the domination type." Ganondorf said  
Mewtwo looked taken aback.

"I assure you, I am not working for M.C. for purely selfish reasons."  
"No? Then why were you so eager to bring in that yellow rat and his friends?"

"They resisted me."  
"Well as long as you're not deluding yourself," Ganondorf said with a smirk.

"Oh yeah, as long as whatever," Bowser grumbled.

Mewtwo looked pensive as Ganondorf turned his attentions towards Bowser.

"What's wrong with you?"

Bowser looked at Ganondorf with an unhappy frown on his reptilian face.

"The boss said that I haven't been doing a good enough job…and took away my power to go Giga."  
"So?" Ganondorf said.

"What do you mean _so_?" Bowser demanded.

"I mean it's not like you need it anymore right? We've already got almost everyone."  
"What about Mario and Link?" Bowser growled back.

"I'm sure M.C. has a plan about that," Mewtwo said.

"Yeah, well I hope M.C. focuses on them. If we let them walk all over us like they have up to now, they could be on our doorstep in moments," Ganondorf warned.

"We don't have a doorstep," Bowser said.

"It's a figure of speech, fool," Ganondorf snapped.

"What do you propose?" Mewtwo asked.

Ganondorf started to answer, but before he opened his mouth he looked carefully around the room.

"Don't worry, he's not paying attention to us now," Mewtwo said.

"Good. I think he's planning on using us as cannon fodder," Ganondorf said.  
"Why?" Bowser asked.

"He's sending us in one at a time, he's ignoring them…I think he wants them to reach him," Ganondorf said.

"Maybe he wants them to get rid of his competition and remove…any untrustworthy elements in his army…" Mewtwo said, glaring at Ganondorf.

"Oh come on, you weren't thinking about it? Do you really want to be second to **him**?"

"He is the most powerful-"

"I don't care. I don't think he's trustworthy, and he knows we're not," Ganondorf said.

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Bowser asked.

"It's simple. Ganondorf thinks that M.C. thinks that we're going to backstab him so he's throwing us at the heroes in order to get rid of us," Mewtwo said.

"Correct! And I say we beat him to the punch! We do what he says, but when he sends us off to die, we'll escape and make it to the back room." Ganondorf said with a smile.

"The back room? Are you sure he won't find us there?" Mewtwo asked.

"Positive. And from there we can figure out a strategy to get back at him. Are you in?" Ganondorf asked Bowser and Mewtwo.

"Wait," Bowser said, raising a claw, "We're going to disobey M.C. because he thinks we're going to betray him, and in essence we are betraying him, but only because he thinks we are, and if he didn't think that we wouldn't, but he did so we are?"  
Mewtwo and Ganondorf looked at each other for a second.

"Yes," Mewtwo said.

"Pretty much," Ganondorf agreed.

"Well, I do agree that it is a logical conclusion that M.C. will attempt to have us all killed one way or another, but I still think there is a strong chance he could deliver what I want," Mewtwo said.

"That's the beauty of this. We abandon M.C. after he lets those guys get all the way here, they battle it out, and we swoop in and kill the battered winner. Then we're left the undisputed rulers!" Ganondorf laughed excitedly, having already figured out a "brilliant" strategy.

"That is a good plan," Bowser said, grinning.

"Only one problem. None of us appear particularly trustworthy. Why should I trust you two not to kill me after all this over M.C. killing me before we betray him?" Mewtwo said, who paused after saying that, as if to verify that it made sense.

"Because you at least have a chance of beating us. None of us have a chance of killing M.C. now, but maybe after he gets weakened from battling them-" Ganondorf stopped suddenly eyes widening.

"I feel it too," Mewtwo said.

"Back to work," Bowser stated.

"The boss is here," Ganondorf said.

_**On K. Rool's Ship…**_

The Smashers turned to see a large dark colored flying crocodile. Or at least it looked like one, but the large propellers revealed that it was in fact not a crocodile, and according to Diddy's frantic explanation it was the Flying Kroc, one of K. Rool's vehicles.

Ah, Diddy Kong. A chimpanzee with sidekick tendencies. His motivations are quite simple to spot. Like all of the Smashers, he possesses a desire to do right and stop evil. In the past he often did right and stopped evil by beating up hordes of vile crocodiles and preventing them from eating the Kong's stash of bananas. He's still not too sure why the Kremlings wanted to eat bananas.

Later he and the other Kong's fought for survival as K. Rool came back not merely for mere sustenance but to kill the Kong's as revenge for his prior defeats and take over their land.

Now Diddy fights because he wants help defeating Bowser and by extension Giga Bowser, an enemy that at least he and Mario have in common. His reason is simple: Vengeance for the death of his female companion, Dixie Kong. Revenge is a powerful motivator…but it will often spur its victims into making mistakes…and on this quest, one mistake could doom them all…and Dixie may not be as dead as she appeared to be…

The Flying Kroc stopped directly over the ship the Smashers were on. They aimed their weapons at it, but instead of attacking the Kroc opened a hatch on the bottom and dropped out a rope ladder.

"What now?" Falco asked, confused.

"I guess we climb," Bario answered, sheathing his swords and grabbing hold of the ladder.

He quickly scaled the ladder, despite its shakiness. Following closely behind was Diddy who almost climbed over Bario. Everyone else than put their weapons away and followed them up the ladder, with the exception of Meta Knight, who flew up.

Upon reaching the hatchway the Smashers got firm footing under them and yanked their weapons back out. The Flying Kroc had the typical look of an advanced vehicle: Shiny buttons, complicated machinery, boring greenish color…but it also had a large quantity of bananas and banana peels in a corner, as well as several other crates and worthless junk strewn about the sides of the ship.  
However the group did not have long to examine these things before the pilot of the ship hit a large switch, closing the hatch bare seconds after the slow Kirby climbed up and trapping them all inside. The pilot than extricated himself from the controls, leaving the ship hovering and turned towards the Smashers, laughing quite evilly.

It appeared to be K. Rool, but his crown and red cape were gone. In their place was a black pirate's hat with the clichéd skull and crossbones, and yet another clichéd pirate vest. If it wasn't for the fact that he was a ten foot tall overweight evil bipedal alligator, he would have looked very much like a pirate. As it was, he just looked weird.

"What…the heck are you wearing?" Raichu asked.

"I am now Kaptain K. Rool. I should wear a garb appropriate for that!" K. Rool said with evil pleasure as he plucked up a large gun with a funnel shaped barrel. This blunderbuss was considerably larger than normal, but in K. Rool's massive hands it looked normal.

"What exactly was the point of changing into that outfit?" Samus asked.

"I…uh…it's not important! What is important, is how DEAD you're going to be after this!" K. Rool shouted as he fired several large cannonballs from his blunderbuss. Each one was about as large as one of Mario's firebombs, and they were moving quickly.

However the Smashers had plenty experience with dodging fast-moving projectiles, and they were able to easily avoid the cannonballs that slammed into the back of the Flying Kroc after missing their intended targets. In fact, they were so good at dodging that several of them were able to retaliate with their own projectiles, which K. Rool did not dodge. However he mostly seemed to ignore them, and continued to fire cannonballs, some of them with metal spikes that lent them an urchin like appearance.

The Smashers continued dodging the attacks, but somehow K. Rool was messing with the physics of his weapons, and some of the balls were swirling around each other in midair, while others were slowly bouncing. The sheer number flying at them forced the Smashers to cease firing back and focus solely on evading the attacks.

They were able to keep that up pretty well, until K. Rool somehow managed to fire a barrel through his blunderbuss and the sheer size of the barrel made it impossible for Diddy to dodge, and he was sent to the ground. He had to quickly roll to avoid a bouncing spiked cannonball and came up with an orange grenade in his hand.

He flung it at K. Rool and it slammed into his face, causing him to reel back, which allowed Mario to hit him with a trio of firebombs. K. Rool shook off the attacks and fired several gaseous blobs at the Smashers.

Link attempted to avoid the blobs, but their strange movements made it difficult and he was touched by one. Immediately he felt like he was covered in sticky molasses, and his speed was drastically reduced. Because of that Link was unable to avoid the cannonball shot his way and was sent careening to the ground, chest severely bruised. Fortunately for him it was not spiked, but the cracked or broken ribs he had didn't exactly make him feel any better.

Falco fell victim to the same double volley: gas cloud slowed him down, and then a cannonball was fired at him, only this time it was spiked. He managed to slowly dive down, but the spikes opened up shallow grooves on his back, and his graceful dive turned into a limp collapse.

In a matter of seconds two of their fighters were out for the count, and King…sorry, Kaptain K. Rool showed no signs of tiring.  
At that moment Meta Knight leapt into their and spread out his wings. In one fluid motion he held his sword in front of him and spun around, causing the wind to swirl around him and create a white tornado-like appearance around himself. He then flew forward, skillfully sliding around a cannonball and drilled himself into K. Rool.

K. Rool let out a grunt of pain and then smacked Meta with the blunderbuss…hard. He then started to turn his attention back towards the others, but in the time it took for Meta to attack him Bario managed to get close enough to unleash his Super Stab attack.

Glowing a faint purple, the ends of his twin blades struck out again and again, actually forcing K. Rool back as dozens of small wounds opened up in his armor-like hide. It seemed like he was going to collapse…when he punched Bario in the face, knocking the portal-creating warrior down, but not out.

Looking quite upset now, K. Rool pointed his blunderbuss at the ground behind him and shot out a jet of flame. Amazingly the flame propelled the massive alligator forward at an impressive speed, and Mario and Kirby barely managed to avoid it. He quickly turned around and attempted to do the same thing again, but Raichu managed to zap him with a powerful lightning bolt, stopping him in his tracks.

K. Rool didn't stay stopped for long though, and with a twisted grin he looked at Diddy…and vanished.

"Where did he go?" Samus demanded, her stun gun, the Paralyzer, aimed at the spot he was standing in a few moments ago.

Her question was answered when he suddenly appeared in front of her and fired a spiked cannonball. Faster than anyone would have expected from the normally armored warrior Samus back-flipped over the attack and fired a bolt of yellow crackling energy at K. Rool. He took the hit and seemed to not care as he vanished again.

Link hesitantly raised his bow, but the pain in his chest caused him to lower it again. Falco managed to lift up his gun, but with an invisible pirate running around he had nothing to aim at. At least not until K. Rool managed to appear in front of Diddy.

He seemed to pop into existence mere feet away, and with a flick of a switch his blunderbuss began sucking air in at a fantastic rate. Diddy was slowly dragged towards it, and it was obvious that if he was sucked into the inner workings of the massive gun, his fate would be most unpleasant.  
The Smashers that could still fight tried to, but K. Rool ignored them and focused entirely on Diddy, as if determined to kill him. Diddy scrabbled to hold onto the metal flooring, but it offered no grip and he was dragged inexorably towards his doom. At the last second he pulled out an orange grenade and threw it at the blunderbuss.

It was sucked in, where it promptly exploded, knocking Diddy back and completely destroying the front of the weapon. A subsequent explosion from the gun itself blackened K. Rool. K. Rool growled and tossed the useless gun at Samus who tried to jump over it, but the barrel clipped her legs, sending her painfully to the ground.

Wincing he dragged himself towards the controls, ignoring Mario, Kirby's and Raichu's attacks. With a triumphant grin he stabbed at a button on the control, which caused the entire floor of the Kroc, outside of the small zone reserved for the pilot, to retract.

"Bye!" K. Rool said cheerfully.

The Smashers attempted to stay on, but they didn't stand a chance and one by one, they fell back down to the ship.

The fall was a good fifty feet, and while some, like Mario and Kirby, and even Meta managed to land relatively easily, the others slammed hard on their fronts or backs into the hard deck. Cannonballs and junk also fell out of the ship, but fortunately none of the Smashers were injured by falling debris.

The Kroc closed itself up and started to fly away, deeper into the ocean. Samus managed to climb to her feet and pulled out a small device from her belt.

"I'm not letting that guy get away," she hissed.

"What are you doing?" Diddy asked, trying to get over the pain of falling fifty feet. If they were anyone else, this might have killed them, but as it was, they were all very much alive, although Link and Falco were both very injured.

"I'm bringing my ship down-" Samus started to say, before a trio of missiles of large green missiles flew from emplacements in the top of the Flying Kroc and went off into the sky.

"CRAP!" Samus said, hitting another button.

The Kroc fired some missiles towards the Smashers as well, but while the explosion was big, the ship absorbed most of the damage with little to no ill effects. By the time the smoke cleared the Kroc was fading into the distance.  
"What happened?" Raichu asked Samus.

"He almost destroyed my ship! I can't bring it down…the second I do, he'll destroy it," Samus said, frustrated.

"How do we follow him now?!" Diddy demanded.

"Well, I have an idea," Bario said.

"What?" Link snapped.

"Does anyone have any sailing experience?"


	35. A sailing we shall go

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Thirty-Five: A sailing we shall go!**

"Sailing experience?" Link asked, "Why would you…no!"  
"What? What's going on?" Raichu asked.

"This moron wants us to take this ship, and use it to catch K. Rool," Link snorted, and immediately regretted it as his injured ribs did not enjoy that particular use of the diaphragm.

"That's actually a good idea!" Diddy said.

"It seems like the only course of action available to us," Meta stated.

"Well I don't like it!" Link said.

"That's not a surprise," Falco said, the wounds on his back still bleeding faintly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Link demanded.

"Oh come on, you've had it out for Bario ever since this whole thing started," Diddy said, irritated.

"And with good reason!" Link snarled back.

"Like what?" Raichu asked, getting into the argument now.

"Well, we don't know anything about his past!"  
"Neither does he. He already said that!" Diddy said.

"And you believe him?" Link asked in disbelief.

"You don't?" Falco said.

"He lied about where he was from before, why wouldn't he lie now?" Link demanded.

"Link, please. You're not accomplishing anything," Samus said.

"What?" Link asked in shock, struggling to crawl to his feet, "You don't believe me either?"  
Bario cut her off before she could answer, but the look in her eyes was enough for Link to know that he was alone in his beliefs.

"Stop. I appreciate you all defending me, but it is not necessary. Clearly Link and I have some issues to work out, but now is not the time. We really need to get this ship going," Bario said.

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Link asked.

"Simple. Diddy, you and Raichu crank up the anchor, Samus, Kirby, Meta and Mario, help me push the ship into the ocean," Bario said.

"What about me and paranoid-boy?" Falco asked.

"Hey!" Link yelled.

"Leave him alone Falco," Bario said, stopping any additional comments from either of them, and severely confusing Link, "You two are injured and should stay there. Try and hold onto something, cause this ship might jerk around once we move it."

Bario and the four he called carefully climbed down the side rungs of the ship onto the beach. Well, okay, Bario and Samus carefully climbed down. Mario jumped off, Meta flew and Kirby floated. Link stared after Bario perplexed as to why he had come to his defense. That guy was weird…

Diddy and Raichu managed to find the anchor on the ocean side of the ship, and it didn't take them long to start hoisting. It was heavy though, and they had to put a lot of effort into it. Additionally it was difficult as Link and Falco weren't the only injured ones, everyone was pretty beat up from the last three fights and subsequent fall from the Flying Kroc. They persevered though and were able to get the anchor up rather quickly.

Meanwhile the other five were pushing on the side of the ship, and Samus wasn't entirely sure what they were expecting to accomplish, considering how heavy it had to be. She may be stronger than the average human thanks to the infusion of Chozo blood, but Kirby and Meta were both pretty weak, and Bario was…well, he didn't look particularly strong. Once Mario started pushing however, the ship shuddered and began to move.

It turned out that the five of them together were more than enough to move the massive, yet strangely light ship, and with relative ease they were able to get the whole thing into the ocean. After that the five clambered back onto the ship, where Bario started issuing more commands.

"Diddy, Meta, get those sails up. Mario and Samus, assist Falco and Link below decks and find them someplace to lie down. Kirby, Raichu go below decks as well and see what you can do about finding supplies," Bario said with an easy confidence that implied that he had sailed before.

The others were getting used to being directed by Bario, and quickly fanned out to fulfill their tasks, with Diddy and Meta climbing/flying to the various parts of the ship to open up to the sails, to Mario scooping up Falco like a small doll and carrying the bird being down through the doorway K. Rool had initially come through.

Samus reached down to help Link up, but he jerked away from her touch. He immediately regretted that as his chest released a painful twinge, but he managed to keep from crying out.

"Oh come on. Don't be a baby," Samus said with a frown.

"You don't believe me," Link accused.

"Doesn't mean I don't like you. It just means I think you're a bit of an idiot, but that's fine," Samus said quickly.

"You like me? I'm an idiot?" Link asked in surprise.

"Shut up," Samus said before grabbing Link and hauling him up to his feet.

"Ow!"

"Again, shut up."  
Samus let Link lean on her as she half-dragged the proud Hylian warrior down to the lower decks.

When they went down the rather short set of stairs, they found that Mario had already taken Falco somewhere as the two were nowhere to be seen.

The lower decks of the ship were not even remotely cramped. There appeared to only be the one floor, but it encompassed the entire inner section of the ship, which help explained why it was easily pushed. There appeared to be a central hallway which led to three rooms, each of which Samus looked into as they walked down and none of them had any doors.

The first room was an average sized area that appeared to be a storeroom of sorts, with various crates stocked with food ranging from bananas, to things labeled simply "meat." Giving the room a cursory glance, Samus nudged Link along and they looked into the room on the opposite side.

It was larger than the storeroom, and the table with large wooden chairs that took up almost all of the room seemed to indicate that it was an eating area or a place where K. Rool would hold strange reptilian meetings involving the theft of bananas and the napping of primates. Primate-napping? Samus gave this one even less of a glance then the first and headed for the room at the end, which was apparently the room Mario had taken Falco to.

On the way down the small remaining amount of hallway the ship rocked slightly, causing Link to fall heavily into Samus. She stumbled, but she was stronger than a normal human, and had exceptional balance, so she managed to keep her feet, although Link let out a tiny whimper of pain as his ribs rubbed against each other.

"You okay?" Samus asked.

"Fine," Link managed to squeak out.

"I don't think you're fine," Samus said, noticing a widening red spot on his chest.

"I'm…ow…" Link said, before collapsing into Samus's arms.

"Oh…crud…" Samus said, before carrying him into the final room.

It was larger than both of the other rooms, but very uncomplicated. It was composed of twelve simple cots, each nailed to the floor. They were larger than normal human beds, but had only a single sheet and a thin blanket. They rested only three feet above the floor.

Samus noticed Falco lying face-down on one, just as Mario walked past her out of the room. She carefully lay Link down on the nearest cot to the door, where he whimpered again and his eyes widened.

"You need help, like now," Samus said.

"You…right," Link managed to say before seeming to sag with pain.

"Hey, Samus, he needs help," Falco said.

"I KNOW!" Samus yelled, causing Falco to wince, "I just don't know what to do," she trailed off.

"Get Bario," Falco suggested.

Samus didn't even bother to respond. She immediately turned around and ran out of the room and down the hallway, blowing past Mario who said "whoa!" and dashed up the stairs, right as the ship hit a swell, causing her to stumble out onto the deck.

Bario was staring at a purple sphere in his hand, and was steering the ship in a direction Samus recognized as the same one as K. Rool's Flying Kroc had disappeared in. She called out to him, and when he looked down and saw her from his higher perch atop the steering area, he closed his hand, making the sphere disappear.

"What is it?" Bario asked.

"Link, he's really hurt. He needs you, now!" Samus told him.

Nodding, Bario pointed at Diddy and Kirby.

"You two take over."  
Without saying a word they agreed and jumped up to the raised section of the ship that the wheel was on. Pointing in the direction they should go, Bario wasted no more time and ran down the stairs, and then followed Samus into the ship.

They passed by Mario who was examining the storeroom, and seeing them run past him, he turned and followed and soon the three of them reached the chamber that Link and Falco were residing in.

Meanwhile on the top deck, Raichu and Meta, having made sure everything was in order and the ship wasn't going to sink wandered over to where Diddy was standing on Kirby's rock form to control the wheel. Raichu looked up at him, squinting a little from the glare of the sun over the cloudless sky.

"So what's the plan?" Raichu asked.

"Plan?" Diddy asked.

"For taking down K. Rool?" Raichu said.

"Oh. I don't know," Diddy said, kind of indifferently.

"Why do you act this way?" Meta asked.

"Act what…agh!" Diddy said when he realized who had spoken.

"What?"  
"Sorry, I'm just REALLY not used to you be coherent," Diddy said.

"I still do not understand," Meta stated.

"Don't worry about it. What'd you mean?"  
"You seem to not care about K. Rool. Is he not your dimensions primary antagonist? Do you not look forward to his defeat?"  
"Well, yeah, but I don't know. Ever since this whole adventure started, K. Rool just seemed like a minor detail, especially after Giga," Diddy said, grinding his teeth.

"I see." Meta Knight said.

Listening, but more interested in a detail that had been bugging him for a while, Raichu walked around the edge of the ship, carefully stepping down the stairs and peering over the side. He completed a full circuit, at which point he ended up back at the wheel where Meta and Diddy were both staring at him with interest.

"What?"  
"What were you doing?" Diddy asked.

"I was checking for any damage from K. Rool's missiles," Raichu responded in a confused voice.

"And? What did you find?" Meta Knight asked.

"Nothing. They didn't leave a dent, just a few scorched sections of the hull," Raichu stated.

"Well what did you expect?" Diddy asked.

"Well, I want to know how mere wood managed to withstand that kind of power!" Raichu said.

"Mere wood? What's tougher than wood?" Diddy asked.

"What?" Raichu and Meta Knight said.

In the cot room beneath the ship, Bario was looking at Link, who was forcing himself to stay conscious and was giving Bario a look that would melt steel. Fortunately, Bario wasn't steel, so he did not melt.

"Don't you dare do anything to me you son of a-" Link growled as Bario's left hand started to glow purple.

"LINK!" Samus said, "Shut up!"  
"I'm just going to see what's wrong with you okay?" Bario asked, looking quite concerned.

"NO! It is not okay! I don't want you messing with me at all!" Link said, starting to move away from Bario, but he stopped suddenly, hissing in pain.

At that moment Bario ran his hand over Link, keeping it a good foot over him. It was over in a second, but Link's eyes widened when he saw the hand pass over him, and experienced what felt like a small hand probing him. Ignoring the pain in his chest he lunged forward and slammed Bario in the face with a punch that was more unexpected than powerful, and Bario was sent stumbling back into a cot.

Samus started to admonish him but Link crumpled back, and she saw what looked like a hard white object poking out of his tunic. His breathing quickened.

"Oh no!" Mario said, leaning against the wall by the door.

"Yeah. Link, you are so going to die!" Falco said, the large wounds on his back still oozing slightly.

"No…he's not," Bario said, standing up again.

"See, I'm fine. I don't need _you_," Link spat.

"Yes, you do. That cannonball snapped three of your ribs, and the fall bruised several of your vertebrae. You've suffered massive internal bleeding, and one of your kidneys is punctured as is your skin from your broken ribs. I'm amazed you are able to move at all, but if I don't act fast, you will die."  
"I'm not letting you do anything to me!" Link snarled.

"Damn it Link! Don't be an idiot!" Samus angrily said.

"NO! I'd rather die than let him screw with me like he did Meta Knight!"  
"Isn't there something else we could do?" Falco asked, "Cause my back is killing me, and I really want it taken care of."  
"Well, with no powerful enemies nearby we can't count on the pink dust. If you don't let me help you Link, than I know of no other alternative…except maybe…" Bario turned towards Mario.  
Mario looked at Bario, than at Link, and still maintaining that half-smile he always seemed to have, he nodded.

"What?" Samus said, not understanding the significance of that nod, nor why Bario was now grinning.

"Mario will take care of him," Bario said.

"How?" Link said, his anger starting to fade as the pain increased.

Mario started to spin, doing what looked like a Mario Tornado in the doorway. It was over quick, but what appeared after it was quite amazing.

Mario's clothes had become white. In fact they weren't even the same clothes. He was wearing some kind of multi-pocketed lab coat with white slacks and a red tie beneath the coat. His hat had vanished, replaced by a headband with a strange silvery cylinder on the front. His neck was adorned with a stethoscope.

"It's-a me-a, Dr. Mario!" Mario said, quite pleased with himself.

"I had no idea you could do that," Link said, the shock overriding his pain briefly.

"When did you get a PhD?" Samus asked unsure of whether or not this was a good thing.

Mario just grinned wider and walked over to Link.

"Well, while he takes care of you, I'm going to fix up Falco," Bario said.

"I am totally on board with that," Falco said as Bario stepped towards him and raised his glowing hands. As he lay them on Falco's back the wounds immediately started to close.

Mario meanwhile was looking carefully at Link, examining the wound and gently poking and feeling around. It didn't hurt, but it sure felt weird.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Link asked worriedly.

"Yes!" Mario stated before calmly grabbing Link's left arm and holding it down.

"I don't think I like this," Link started to say.

"Too bad," Samus told him, "I just hope Mario doesn't kill you. Wouldn't that be a great reason to die, because you were too paranoid to let a qualified mage heal you and instead let a deluded plumber try and fix you."  
As if in response to her words, Mario's non-occupied hand came down with lightning speed, grabbing and pushing Link's rib back into his body. Link let out a scream of pain, and tried to push Mario away, but the plumber held him down. Samus's eyes widened as Mario's arms blurred around Link's body, pushing and shoving his bones into place. Mario flipped Link over like he was a doll and quickly and efficiently straightened out the damaged spine before flipping him back over.

"Maybe you should stop! I don't want him to die!" Samus said, actually worried.

Mario merely ignored her and finished his painful looking task. Link lay motionless, his bones no longer protruding, but his eyes looked like a mixture of agony and rage.

"You stupid-" Link started to say before Mario shoved a red and blue capsule into his mouth that seemed to come out of his sleeve and shot a small burst of electricity from his hands into Link's chest, forcing him to swallow.

"What was that…" Link said as his eyes began to close.

"That pill should restore your blood and repair some of your internal damage. Hopefully," Bario said, having finished healing Falco, "It will also send you into a forced sleep and accelerate your normal healing process. The forced sleep is the major reason why Mario hasn't been using those on this trip."  
"That's nice, wait…how…you…know…" Link said before turning his head to the side. His breathing soon slowed as he fell into a deep sleep.

"Thanks, Mario," Samus said.

"You're-a welcome!" Mario said, before spinning back into his normal clothes.

"Sleeping looks like a pretty good idea actually," Falco said, before closing his eyes.

"Now what?" Samus asked.

"I'll head back up and take back control of the ship. I'll send everyone else back down to empty the storeroom. You need to eat," Bario told her.

"What about you?"  
"I'll have something later tonight, when the wind dies down I'll stop the ship. I've used a destination tracking ability, we won't reach K. Rool until tomorrow."  
"That's neat…but my ship could have tracked him as well," Samus said.

"Didn't know. Anyways, you and Mario start getting some food ready.

Mario and Samus nodded and the three of them left Link and Falco to rest.

Outside the rest area, Mario and Samus went to the storeroom and started examining boxes while Bario continued on to the top of the ship where Diddy was trying to understand why Raichu and Meta Knight disagreed with him about saying that wood was the toughest material ever.

"I'm just trying to understand why you disagree with me saying that wood is the toughest material ever!" Diddy said.

"But it's not, numerous metals are stronger," Meta told him.

"Not here they're not," Bario said, stepping up to them.

"What?" All three said.

"In this particular dimension, wood, at least certain kinds, is far more powerful than steel. It's just one of the rules."  
"I don't understand," Raichu said.

"It's simple. Each dimension has their own rules. These rules can be bent, which is why you maintain your abilities in these other worlds, but the rules still exist. These rules govern what kinds of people, and materials can be found, and what they can do. It's really quite fascinating," Bario said.

"Right…" Diddy said, pretending he knew exactly what Bario was talking about.

Staring into the confused faces, Bario cleared his throat and gestured to the lower decks of the ship.

"Uh…there's food below. I would suggest you eat it, and then get to bed…it's been a while since anyone here has had any sleep."  
Worried he might have to prod them a bit to get them to leave, Bario was relieved to see them perk up at the idea of food, and Raichu, Meta and Diddy quickly dashed to the bottom section of the ship.

Bario walked over to the wheel, but almost tripped over Kirby who was still staying beneath the wheel in a rock-like form.

"Kirby? Food." Bario said.

"OK!" Kirby shouted, turning back into his normal pink self and dashing down to the food.  
Bario chuckled, and then caused the purple sphere to reappear in his hands. Frowning, he glanced at it, and then slightly changed the direction of the ship.

Below decks, Mario used some of his fireballs to cleverly cook the meat and the six Smashers had a much wanted meal of bananas and a meat that none of them were quite sure of what it exactly consisted of.

The food was edible though, and they gobbled it down, while taking advantage of the rare opportunity to share information about themselves with each other.

Diddy told about his many exploits with Donkey Kong and other members of his family, and his multiple run-ins with K. Rool. He did not mention the Giga Bowser and Dixie incident at all.

Raichu explained what life was like for him in his home world, and discussed the many interesting situations he found himself in, including an awkward one involving a human in a red cap who kept screaming about "Catching them all," whatever that meant. He also did not mention Mewtwo.

Meta Knight did the talking for both him and Kirby, and told the others of the various challenges they were often in, including the times they engaged in most epic combat.

Samus started to talk about herself, but after a sudden glance around, a guilty look came over her face, and she quickly stopped.

Before the others could ask her about her abrupt stop, Falco wandered in, looking kind of tired. He perked up upon seeing the food, and sat down to eat some of the leftovers. The others pressed him for any details about himself, and he quickly responded.

He told them about Andross, the Star Fox team, and of course the Star Wolf team. After he finished Mario yawned, and told them "Thank you very much-a for eating my food!" after that, he walked into the room where Link was still sleeping and hopped into a cot, falling asleep instantly.

After that the conversation was pretty much over. A quick look through a small viewport revealed that it was quite dark inside…they had been talking for hours. With full bellies, they were looking forward to getting the first real sleep in ages and they all passed into the room, and crept into cots and fell asleep, after removing shoes and weapons.

Except for one.

Samus, after waiting to make sure everyone else was asleep, crept over to Link, who was still sound asleep. Carefully moving him around to remove his weapons, which looked like they were uncomfortable to have on in a laying down position, she quietly told him about herself, and her adventures.

While she placed his equipment beneath the cot and out of the way, she told the sleeping and clueless Link about the Chozo and Space Pirates, about Metroids and Ing, Phazon and the X. She stayed there for over half-an hour after she finished with his items, and after she was done she looked at his motionless body for a second and started to form a final sentence.

"Link…I…"

That's as far as she got before shaking her head, she wandered back to her cot and closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind of the thoughts that were rampaging through it.

On the top of the ship, Bario silently and efficiently steered them towards their destination.

_**Several hours later…**_

Link opened his eyes. Upon using them to see where he was, he leapt to his feet. He was standing on a wide platform, with a wide black streak running down the middle and it was surrounded by light blue flooring. He looked wildly around and noticed that the platform was flying through what looked like a swirling vortex.  
His examination of the area was halted when he heard a familiar voice call out his name. Spinning around he saw a woman about his age on the opposite side of this strange place, with long brown hair and elven ears. She was clad in a long dress with a Triforce symbol on it. She raised her thin arms and placed her white gloved hands to her mouth and called his name again.

"Zelda?" Link said in shock.

Without wasting another moment he ran towards her. She smiled as he did, but as he got closer she changed. Link didn't realize it at first, but as he ran she became taller, her clothes became tighter and blue and her hair became blond. By the time he reached her she had become Samus.

"Samus?" Link said, again quite shocked.

She smiled at him, and then reached down. Link followed her gaze to see she was holding her helmet. She raised it to her face, and as she did Link saw that she was suddenly in her power suit. She started to put her helmet on, but something jumped up from behind her.

A familiar laugh echoed around the vortex traveling platform and Samus was grabbed from behind and forcefully spun around, dropping her helmet.

"NO!" Link shouted as a large green skinned man dressed in dark armor grabbed her face and shot a pulse of dark magic through her head.

Samus screamed, but with a sharp twist of the man's –Ganondorf's- hand her scream was cut too short, and with casual disregard Samus's beaten body was flung off the platform, vanishing.

With a sharp clunk her helmet hit the floor and Link was spurred into action. He let loose a cry of rage and raising his blade, ran at Ganondorf. Laughing Ganondorf summoned a large pure white blade that he used to block Link's mad overhead swing.  
Link pushed down, but Ganondorf easily held him back, and actually started to push him away, still laughing.

As Link stared his hated foe in the face, Ganondorf started to change like Zelda had, his laugh becoming higher pitched, and featured less pure malice and more cold resolve. He shrank, becoming barely taller than Link, his muscles and green skin disappearing. His armor turned red and became a tunic markedly similar to Link's. His orange hair became a purplish color, as did his eyes, and the large white blade became two steely-gray ones.

In a matter of moments Ganondorf had become Bario. Link's eyes widened and he pushed again, but he fared no better, and in seconds Bario's superior strength had driven Link to his knees and still laughing, raised one of his blades up, as if to remove Link's head.

But the show wasn't done yet.

Before the sword came down, and before Link's terrified eyes, Bario changed again, his clothes becoming entirely purple, followed by his skin. The blades seemed to sink into Bario, as his body sagged together, creating a massive purple blob that darkened nearly too black. All courage left Link as the terrible monstrosity before Link reached out a thin tentacle towards him.

The tentacle crept closer and Link couldn't tear his eyes from it. The ground beneath him shook and cracked, but the tentacle continued unhindered. Right before it touched him a frighteningly loud voice bellowed into his mind.

"I AM KIDAR!"

_**Early Morning…**_

Link shot up in his cot, a scream dying on his lips. He sat there for several minutes, trying to separate what he had just seen from reality. He realized he was sitting in a cot damp with cold sweat, and he got up, almost falling over in the dark as he realized his weapons and equipment were gone.  
Link experience a rare moment of panic until his eyes adjusted and he saw them under his cot. Trying to be quiet to not disturb the others, who seemed to be sleeping…Mario was snoring, so Link guessed he was not awake, Link grabbed his things and started to attach them to him.  
Faint starlight filtered through the single porthole in the room, and the orange glow of the sun just peeking up from behind the horizon.

Link noticed that he no longer suffered from pain. Mario may have been a plumber, but apparently he had somehow earned a doctor's degree. He stopped his weapon attaching and felt his chest, but there wasn't even any tenderness. After wordlessly thanking Mario, he continued getting ready.

In a few minutes he was done, and to his best guess no one had been awakened. Silently he crept out of the room and up the stairs onto the main deck of the ship. Breathing in the fresh sea air, Link leaned up against the railing and looked out at the sea.

"What are you doing up so early?" a voice called out.

Startled Link spun around, hand reaching for his sword, until he saw who it was.

"Oh," Link said, lowering his hand, albeit slowly, "It's you."  
Bario nodded, hand lightly resting on the wheel.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" Link asked, a slightly accusatory tone in his voice.

"I got a good six hours once I was sure we were going in the right direction. I just woke up a few minutes ago actually."  
"Sure," Link said, walking up to the higher point on the ship where Bario was currently standing.

Hearing Link's tone Bario let out a long sigh.

"What now?" Link demanded, standing only a few feet from Bario, trying to not think about the…nightmare.

"Do you really have to do this?" Bario asked.

"What, not trust you because you're a lying snake?"

"Act like that," Bario said, sighing again, "It's really annoying."  
"I don't trust you, and until you're completely honest with me that's not going to change," Link said angrily.

"I told you about me, how I've been forced to travel through dimensions. What more do you want?"  
"For starters your real name."  
"What?" Bario said, quite startled.

"Come on, you expect me to believe that BARIO is your actual name? One letter away from Mario? Give me a break."  
"I don't have one," Bario said.

"What?"  
"I don't have a name. I just picked that one after I heard about Mario. I have no idea what my real name is, or if it even exists."  
"Hmmm," Link said, trying to maintain his suspicion, but he was having trouble with that.

"Look Link, clearly you have a problem with me."  
"Yeah."  
"Than let's settle this," Bario said, drawing his swords and backing away from the wheel.

"What?"  
"Let's have a duel to the death," Bario said with a grin on his face.


	36. A Duel to the not quite Death

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Thirty-Six: A Duel to the not-quite Death**

"What?" Link said, too shocked to draw his weapon.

"Joking," Bario said, still grinning.

"Not funny," Link said, peeved.

"Well, I wasn't entirely joking," Bario said, advancing towards Link, who started to back away.

"What do you mean?"  
"I do think that we should FIGHT!" Bario said, lunging forward.  
Startled, Link stepped back, only to discover there was nothing to step back on…he was at the edge of the upper portion of the ship. He lost his balance and fell, but he managed to turn the fall into a clumsy roll, avoiding any actual injury.

Link jumped to his feet as Bario leapt over him, spinning in midair, and drawing both swords as he faced Link. A look of irritation came over Link as he readied his sword and shield.

"What is this about?"

"It's simple. You don't trust me, and you don't appear to be changing that any time soon, right?"  
"Yes."  
"Well, then I think you and I should have a duel to get some of that stress off," Bario said, smiling a bit.

"You're kidding," Link said, not sure if he was serious or not.

"Nope. If you hadn't noticed, we're in the middle of a war right now, and like it or not, I've ended up as the de facto leader," Bario said.

"I don't like it…but continue."  
"The others lives, and yours are in my hands, and they count on me to help get them through this."  
"See, that's what I don't like," Link said.

"I DON'T CARE!" Bario yelled, startling Link, "You think I want to be in charge of people I barely know to stop things they all have more experience with?"

"Well…I would guess not," Link started.

"The answer is NO! But that doesn't matter, because someone has to do it. That person has to be me, since I didn't and STILL don't see anyone stepping up to take charge, and I can't do it if you spend all your time verbally attacking me, and splitting the group apart. Don't you get it? The only way we can possibly do this is if we stick together!"  
"…"

"Link?" Bario said, panting a bit after his outburst.

"I'm sorry," Link said.

"For what?" Bario said, pushing Link a little.

"For…being a jerk, and not treating you with respect," Link said, sounding sincere.

"You don't have to respect me…just don't pounce on everything I say as an excuse that I'm evil," Bario said.

"You're right."  
"What are you doing?" Bario asked as Link started to walk away.

"Going down…why?"  
"Oh no you don't. You think a quick apology is going to fix this? Nuh-uh. We are still going to fight it out."

"But the ship," Link started to say.

"Is on course and steady. Don't worry, this won't take long," Bario said, grinning at Link.

"Alright fine. I've been wanting to get a piece of you for a while…I guess this is the best way to do it," Link said.

"You're going to keep talking, or should I assume your reluctance to fight means that you decided that you really like me…platonically of course," Bario said.

"Oh shut UP!" Link yelled, before aiming a powerful overhead swing at Bario.

Still grinning, Bario raised both his blades up and caught the attack. Link's eyes widened slightly as he recognized the positions and leapt back so fast that Bario almost fell over. Before Bario could comment on that, Link swung at Bario's left side, an attack that Bario easily parried.

"So Link, you don't trust me?" Bario said, stabbing towards Link's chest, which was blocked by his shield.

"Not particularly," Link said, hopping over a low attack.

"Does that really matter though?"

"What?" Link said, startled by the question.

"Does your not trusting me matter?" Bario asked, aiming a series of blows at Link's sword arm.

"How can you ask that? Of course it matters!" Link said jerking his shield forward in an attempt to knock Bario off balance.

"No it doesn't. I am in charge, like it or not, and whether or not you trust me does not affect how the others see me," Bario said, side-stepping the shield.

"What are you saying, that I don't matter?" Link asked angrily, stepping back from Bario's return slice.

"Of course not. Your suspicions however have no proof, and if you keep insisting on them, the others will lose respect for you."  
"They will not!" Link yelled.

"They already have, surely you've noticed?" Bario asked, circling warily.

Link had indeed noticed, and Bario's words were starting to pierce his armor of certainty. A quick jump prevented Bario's sword from piercing his side.

"Link, I am the unofficial leader…but if you think that you can do a better job…by all means, take the post," Bario said, before lowering his blade.

Link looked at Bario, sword and shield still raised. The offer seemed too good to be true…and it was. Even if Bario was serious, which Link wasn't too sure about, he really couldn't do a better job. No one else could. Bario had a head for tactics that Link didn't, and the others had no problem following him. Bario had a charisma Link wasn't sure he had. And there was the fact that Bario had saved all their lives a few times on this trip.

Link sighed and hung his head, all the fight drained out of him.

"I'm done. I'm sorry for what I've done…and I want you forgive me. I really have been an idiot."  
"Not arguing there…but apology accepted. Now get ready!" Bario said, stabbing forward.

"What are you doing?!" Link demanded, barely blocking the attack.

"This isn't over yet!"

In the bowels of the ship the faint sound of clanging metal caused one of the sleeping Smashers to awaken. Brushing the hair and sleep out of her eyes Samus cocked her head to listen to the sound. Not immediately realizing what it was she got out of her cot and staggered to the door, being careful not to wake the others…and realized Link was gone. A quick look around verified her fear…Bario wasn't there either.  
In a startling moment of clarity she realized what the sound was. Swords.  
Samus ran out of the room faster than fast. In a blur she turned the corner at the end of the hall and practically leapt up the stairs.  
When she reached the top she quickly spotted Link and Bario engaged in what seemed to be a deadly duel. As she watched Bario stabbed towards Link, who blocked it and then rolled to side before spinning back up by Bario's back, where Link slashed towards the unprepared Bario.

"LINK! NO!" Samus said, causing Link to freeze in surprise.  
Link and Bario both turned to face Samus, confusion evident in their faces.

"What?" Bario asked.

"What do you mean what? Link was about to kill you!"  
"No I wasn't!" Link said, affronted by the very idea.

"Yes you were! Geez Link, how could you attack Bario!"  
"I didn't!"  
"Don't give me that! I saw you!"  
"Uh…Samus…he didn't. We were just…sparring," Bario said.

"You were…oh. Sorry," Samus said, quite abashed.

"Its fine," Link said, hurt by the accusation.

"Well back to the duel…looks like you won," Bario said.

"What? Oh…right. Guess so."

"Look…I know you still have your doubts, but I want you to know that as long as we're journeying together I won't do anything to harm you or anyone else on this boat. I will help you defeat all enemies we encounter until Mist…Master Hand is destroyed," Bario said, the conviction in his voice surprising both Samus and Link, and drawing their attention away from the slight slip of the tongue. Bario held out his hand.

Link stared deeply at Bario, expecting his hand to twinge, since his Triforce of Courage allowed him to read people really well, he was also hoping it could tell whether they were lying. Whether it could or not it didn't react, and with little reluctance, Link shook Bario's hand, releasing all of his doubts…at least for now.

Meanwhile the others, awakened by the noises upstairs, and Samus's mad dash, slowly straggled onto the main deck of the ship.

"Morning," Falco said, feeling better than he had in a long time.

The others said their hellos too, and Bario suggested they go back down and have something to eat, since they were going to be reaching K. Rool soon. He told them he was fine, he had something earlier. As Link walked past he stopped and turned towards Bario.

"Hey…I had a dream last night," Link said.

Bario paused in his way back to the ship's wheel, his expression stony and unreadable.

"Yes?" Bario asked.

"It was more of a nightmare…and I had one question for you," Link said. When Bario didn't respond, Link continued.

"Do you know who…or what Kidar is?"  
"No," Bario said, in a monotone.

"Alright," Link said, before walking past Bario, mind churning with questions, and definitely considering the prospect that Bario was lying.

Bario took his place at the wheel, and while the others ate and talked, he steered them towards their destination. After about twenty minutes, Diddy came up and walked over towards Bario. He stood there for a while, as if trying to think of something to say, when he saw a dark shape far off in the ocean.

"What's that?" Diddy asked.

"That is where we are going," Bario said with a grin.  
They continued traveling forward and eventually everyone had wandered back onto the main deck, and were focused on the shape in the water.

It soon became clear that the shape was a large gray fortress erected on a small island. The front of the fortress was directly on top of the edge of the island and it was quite apparent that there were no obvious entrances. It also became clear as it became closer that Bario was not slowing down.

"Bario…you're not slowing down are you?" Diddy inquired.

"Nope," Bario said, still with that faint grin that he's been showing a lot of lately.

"So, no retracting of sails, turning about, or throwing of anchors?" Diddy questioned, hoping most seriously that the answer to at least one of those would be yes.

"Oh definitely not," Bario answered.

"So…we're going to crash into that fortress," Falco said.

"I don't know of any other way to get in," Bario said,

The others stared for a moment, not sure what to do, and then, as if to snap them out of the stupor Bario called out an order as the fortress filled their view.

"Everybody hang on!"  
The wind was pushing the ship fast, but for some reason it seemed to be traveling faster than the wind, and was not running aground as the water became shallower. No one had any time to worry about these facts as the front of the large ship slammed into the fortress's side wall.

There were several moments of frightening creaking and cracking, and it seemed like the bow of the ship would snap on the hard rock…but in the end, wood beat rock and the ship knocked down a good chunk of the wall…although the front of the ship was crushed beyond all recognition.

Most of the Smashers were thrown to the ground by the collision, with the exception of Mario who seemed to have frighteningly good balance, and Bario who had been holding quite tightly to the ship's wheel.

"Well that was completely insane," Link said, getting back to his feet.

"But effective!" Bario responded.

"Next time, warn us a bit before you do something like that, okay?" Samus said.

Shaking the shock out of the system, Bario directed them towards the front of the ship, where they climbed down. It's important to note that with a decent amount of food in their stomachs, and a good rest, they felt better than they had had for a while.

They managed to drop off into a large room that appeared to be some kind of chemical storage area. It was a wreck now, although it would be difficult to see a room NOT look like a wreck after a giant ship wrecked into it, creating another wreck as a byproduct of the now wrecked ship wrecking the currently wrecked room. Wreck.

A large portion of vials and beakers had broken, and were currently smoking on the ground, creating an unpleasant smell. As quickly as possible the group moved to a door away from the ship and used it to enter a new room that was about as large as the previous one, if not larger.

The new room appeared to be where the majority of the chemicals were used, and it had the appearance of a disordered lab. A large table lay near the far wall, and various shelves and machinery were strewn around the room. No windows were present; the only light came from lights attached to the ceiling and walls.

The only things of note were the large round metallic objects strewn around the edges of the room, about two on each side, one at Diddy's height and the other at Bario's. Additionally at each corner were what appeared to be orange tubes protruding from the floor. Diddy noticed these immediately, but considering he never actually fought K. Rool the third time, as it was Dixie who rescued him from the vile crocodile when he was residing in the laboratory, he was unable to recall what they were.

Unsure of where to go, the Smashers wandered around a bit, spreading out as they did so.

As they examined the area, trying to find something that would lead them to K. Rool a loud thumping could be heard above them, as if there was a second floor.  
"What was that?" Raichu asked.

"I have no idea," Diddy said, "Although this place is _really _familiar…I feel like I'm missing something…"  
It soon became apparent what Diddy was missing when a large section of the concrete ceiling dropped down, nearly squashing Kirby, who only managed to barely roll out of the way after hearing the sound. Before anyone else could react, something bulky floated down from the hole and stared at the group of heroes.

At least, they think it stared. It was big, about the size of K. Rool, but cylindrical, and very green. There were strange kinds of gears and slots sticking out of it, as if whoever built it wanted to make it very obvious that it was a machine, despite the fact that it was clearly a large metal robot. It was very obvious either way.

Its head was dome-shaped, and it had a narrow visor-like part on the front that shifted between a vibrant orange to a dark red. Two antennas were on top of the dome, and while one was bent, it wasn't very obvious what either of them were for. Rounding out the strange…robot, was the fact that instead of legs it had a single strong jet of yellow-orange flame shooting out of its lower region, keeping it aloft.  
"Kaos!" Diddy said, seeming quite startled.

"What's that?" Raichu demanded, as Kaos made a strange beeping noise.

"A robot made by K. Rool, but it was destroyed!"  
"Like being destroyed ever stopped anything," Link said, drawing his bow.

"Don't worry about impossibilities…just keep away from that thing and open fire!" Bario commanded.

The others agreed, all firing their attacks. Link's arrow bounced harmlessly off the thick metal armor, while Bario's magic balls, Meta's energy balls and Mario's firebombs seemed to cause little damage. Falco's laser, as usual was mostly useless, and Diddy's peanuts were pathetic. Kirby threw his cutter, but it barely made a light scratch and returned, also uselessly. Raichu's and Samus's attacks, being electrical in nature caused some damage, but Kaos seemed indifferent to the onslaught.

"Currently analyzing threat level," Kaos said in a stereotypical robot voice.

"It can talk?" Falco asked.

"Yes," Kaos said, "Threat level analyzed. Current opponents equal…minimal threat. Recommend minor action," Kaos said.

"Now wait just a second…we are not a minor threat!" Diddy said.

"Logic center indicates otherwise."  
"Stop being so logical!" Diddy said, running towards Kaos. An instant before he hit the mechanical monstrosity, a large spring-powered boxing glove shot out of a hatch, slamming Diddy hard in the chest, and flinging him quite far, before retracting just as quickly.

"No." Kaos said.

Link than charged forward, followed by Kirby, while the others kept up their projectile barrage, trying to find a weak spot. Link and Kirby both managed to avoid the boxing gloves shooting out at them, but three rotating blades stationed at different heights on the robot popped out, one of them right next to Link.

He ducked, but Kirby jumped, managing to hop off the top of one of the blades, and then floated up to Kaos's head. A peanut narrowly missed Kirby as Diddy rejoined the fray, but he didn't even notice as he pulled out his hammer and slammed it into Kaos's strange head.

The head of Kaos bobbed down, before returning to its state, and Kaos floated back, but it wasn't in time to prevent Link from hitting the head with a bomb arrow. The resulting explosion knocked Kirby to the ground, startled, but not injured, while Kaos's head started to smoke.

"I think its hurt," Raichu said, pausing in his attack.

The others paused as well, as Kaos's head floated off. Well, actually, it wasn't its head, more like a helmet, as there was a steely gray head beneath that, with the vague appearance of a human male. Well, it would resemble that, if human's had large pointy gray fangs and a black hole for a mouth. The helmet floated sedately a few feet over Kaos.

"Threat level reanalyzed…current level of threat: Moderate. Self-recommend immediate action," Kaos said.

"You bet we're a threat," Falco said, aiming a laser shot at Kaos.

Kaos responded by shooting a large jet of flame down, nearly scorching Kirby. Kirby managed to evade it, but Raichu was hit by a wide laser shot from the visor of the floating helmet, that was about the same color of the visor.

"Ow!" Raichu said, a patch of his fur smoking from where the beam hit.

Samus was unhappy. She really wanted her suit. She'd like to see this Kaos stand up to a Super Missile or two. Unfortunately for her, she was suitless and clad only in her blue jumpsuit, and she was armed with a versatile, but not particularly powerful weapon. She felt naked, and not in the literal way, although recently she had wished that she had a bit more on than the jumpsuit. Something about wearing a suit that feels…and looks painted on while battling evil villains made her feel slightly uncomfortable. Considering that she was currently battling an evil robot, this might not have been the best time to worry about it…or perhaps it is the best time.

Kaos shot a jet of flame out of its bottom again, this time trying to hit the nearby Link, who managed to roll away, although part of his tunic smoked.

The helmet shot a blast at Falco, but expecting it he activated his Reflector, turning the attack back and stunning the visor for a second as it tried to reroute itself after its own laser hit it.

Before it could recover Mario leapt high into the air and slammed the floating helmet hard with his hammer. Already stunned, the helmet flew into the join where Kaos's head met the green body and exploded, removing the apparently poorly made second head.

"Whoa," Diddy said, quite startled.

Kaos seemed weakened, but he was far from defeated. From the spot where the helmet and head had stayed, a third cranial protrusion appeared. This one was black and was cylindrical, like a soup can. It had pipe-like sections attached to it, and looked even weirder than the gray head.

Speaking of, the gray head suddenly started twitching, and with a familiar looking jet of flame shooting from the bottom of its "neck" hovered into the air.

"Threat level reanalyzed…again…current level of threat: High," Kaos said, still showing no emotion.

"That thing is freaky as all get out," Falco said, referring to the floating head.  
Kaos's gray head suddenly shot forward, horizontally like an evil missile. At the same time, small black round objects came shooting out of Kaos's new head…and they exploded upon hitting the ground.

Samus skillfully dodged the bombs; one of the plus sides of not wearing her suit was that her speed was drastically higher. Her dodging was echoed by the startlingly agile Mario, while everyone else evaded or avoided the explosions. Kirby was unable to avoid a bomb, as was Bario, and the two of them suffered minor damage.

Meanwhile the head flew straight towards Meta Knight, who side-stepped and slashed it with his sword as it flew past. Knocked off balance by the blow it slowed, and that allowed Samus to utilize one of the more interesting parts of her stun gun, the Paralyzer. She shot out a yellowish beam of electricity, similar to her grapple beam and it latched onto the gray head.  
Using the momentum of the impromptu missile she spun it and flung it into the black head on top of Kaos. With an almighty explosion the second head exploded, destroying the third head, and causing Kaos to collapse to the ground.

"Detecting status…status equals: Bad," Kaos said before trailing off. All of the moving parts on it ceased their moving.

"Did we finish him?" Link inquired.

"OH YES!" a loud voice boomed, and a large being dropped down from the hole in the ceiling that Kaos opened up.

"Agh! You!" Diddy said, quite startled…a feeling that was echoed by the others as they realized who was standing before them…and what exactly he was wearing.

It was K. Rool, but he had discarded his kingly and piratey attire, for something even stranger: A bulky white lab coat, full of pockets and strange sciency items. His head sported the same circular band Mario had as Dr. Mario, and his hands were covered by massive black gloves. He had some kind of metal contraption strapped to his back, and seemed more off balance…and more disturbed, than usual.

"What is up with that get-up?" Falco asked.

"It is my necessary attire!" K. Rool said, "I am now Baron K. Roolenstein!"  
"No, you're not," Bario said.

"What? Of course I am."  
"You're no more Roolenstein, than you were a Kaptain. Merely changing your outfit doesn't change your name! And your name changing…doesn't change you!" Bario yelled with surprising vehemence.  
Startled by the outburst, it took K. Rool a moment to remember what he was going to say.

"Uh…oh, right! You guys are going to pay for destroying my robot!"  
"If you didn't want us to destroy it, then why did you have it attack us?" Raichu asked.

"Because I was under the impression it would destroy you!"  
"So it's your fault it got destroyed then?" Samus asked.

"Huh? Well…no…but…AGH! How dare you CONFUSE A BARON! DIE!"  
Rool followed up his threat by pulling out a strange remote control from his lab coat and pressing one of several buttons. Immediately the pack on his back extended a green metal pole that spread out into a helicopter like blade that lifted him several feet off the ground, despite the physical impossibility of that.  
"Wow…that was unexpected," Falco said.

With a cry of rage Rool reached down with his massive arms and grabbed Kaos's battered body and threw it at Diddy. Diddy dodged, but Mario, who was behind Diddy didn't have time…so he slammed it with his hammer, deflecting the flying giant robot, and somehow preventing himself from being hit. Quite a show of strength. Kaos then finished its life as a pile of scrap by shattering upon hitting the wall.

K. Rool did not seem happy about his robot being completely destroyed, and so, with surprising speed, he flew at Mario. Mario rolled under the airborne Kremling, and as K. Rool tried to turn around, Link hit him with a bomb arrow in the jetpack thing. It fizzled and K. Rool crashed to the ground.

The others backed away from the large enemy as he flailed around, and trained their weapons on him.

"Come on K. Rool," Bario said, "Just surrender…you have no chance of winning."

"Oh?" K. Rool said, as he pulled out his remote.

"Don't let him press it! FIRE!" Bario commanded.

K. Rool ignored their attacks, although they had to be hurting, and activated his jet pack again, using his body to protect it. When he was about seven feet in the air he hit a switch, and the strange objects around the walls of the area sent out lines of electricity that connected and formed a huge plus sign two electrical lines high in the center of the area. Falco and Mario were both singed, and quickly backed away from the painful arcs of electricity.

K. Rool laughed, but quickly stopped when the Smashers opened fire again, avoiding the areas where the electricity was traveling. He swerved a little bit, but was unable to dodge the majority of the attacks, so with a scowl he tapped a third switch on his remote, which activated the pipe-like objects in the corners.  
They swiveled to face the Smashers and then fired massive orange fireballs, with diameters equal to Diddy or Raichu's height. The fireball shooting machines seemed like they were designed to focus mostly on the largest living creature on the ground, as Link, with his excessive equipment had several shooting at him.

The Smashers immediately broke off their attacks and started dodging the fireballs, a task that was easy for some, but difficult for others. Link managed to deflect one of them, but the force behind it knocked him into the lines of electricity, severely shocking him before he managed to get out, while Kirby was unable to dodge one of the fireballs at all and suffered a pretty serious hit, as did Bario.

K. Rool cackled as the Smashers frantically attempted to dodge his machines, and tried to press a fourth button his remote…only to realize it only had three buttons. Irritated he threw it at Diddy, who swatted it out of the air where it shattered upon hitting the ground.  
Unfortunately that did nothing to stop the devices, and the Smashers were starting to get tired.  
K. Rool's maniacal laughter continued as he was confident in his dangerous device's ability to prevent the group from retaliating. He soon discovered how very wrong he was when Meta Knight flew up, and surrounded himself in an orange tornado and spun towards K. Rool.

The fireballs were only designed to hit ground targets, as were the electric lines, so they did nothing to prevent the slow-moving K. Rool from being caught in Meta's attack. K. Rool was battered a bit, but retaliated with a mighty punch that Meta barely dodged. An energy ball from Meta's sword stunned K. Rool enough for Meta to drill into K. Rool with the point of his blade, damaging him some more.

At this point, Diddy activated his jet pack and flew over a fireball and towards K. Rool, firing peanuts. K. Rool, quite irritated now reared back to hit Diddy, but Meta slashed his arm, distracting him long enough for Diddy to swerve to the side of the large villain and throw an orange grenade at his jetpack, which exploded. Diddy and Meta than landed on the ground.  
Again losing power K. Rool crashed to the ground…right in the middle of the electric plus sign. The shocking went on for eighteen seconds, with K. Rool trapped by the device he activated, until it destroyed his jetpack, turning it into a charred mess sending a resulting electrical volt back down the line that caused the electric machines to short out and explode.

There were several moments of stunned silence as a smoking K. Rool quivered in rage. Than the silence was broken as his own fireball shooting devices decided that he was the largest living creature on the ground…apparently he was not thinking very clearly when he designed them. He was immediately pelted by several large fireballs.

With a cry of rage, K. Rool ignored the Smashers and ran towards a fireball flinging creation, disregarding the fireballs, and destroyed it with a mighty swing. Then, continuing undaunted despite the firepower being sent his way he destroyed the next one…and the one after that, and then the final one.

After that the Smashers stared at a smoking and singed K. Rool, quite shocked by his ability to remain standing after the beating he just received.

"Looks like your plan failed," Bario said, pointing his right-hand sword at K. Rool, the others gathering around him, ready to finish off K. Rool.

"Not quite," K. Rool, a disturbing smile coming to his face as he reached into his pockets, "You don't think I've survived this long by being stupid…do you?"  
K. Rool pulled out another remote, this one with only one large red button. The others realized immediately that the remote was bad news, but before they could attack, he slammed the button down…and the floor opened up beneath the Smashers.  
Screaming they plummeted down into a dark abyss, K. Rool's laughter following them in their unexpected journey…


	37. The Endful Pit

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Endful Pit.**

"Agh!" Luigi said, hitting the ground roughly.

He got to his feet as quickly as he could, and glanced around. As far as he could tell, he was on an expansive green field. His first thought was that the green was grass, but further examination of the substance revealed it was a chalk-like substance. He tried scraping some of it away, but it did not come off.

He looked around, cautious, but mostly confused. The last thing he could remember was being trapped in the cage…he was talking to Peach, and something hit him from…above? It was kind of blurry.

The place he was in was not helping either. It had no distinguishing features, and with the exception of the ground, and cloudless…and sunless, but still lit blue sky, there was nothing to see.  
He turned around, hoping to spot how he got here, but he failed at that minor task. Disheartened, and slightly creeped out, he started to walk forward. He didn't get far before someone dropped in front of him.

It was a small boy, about half of Luigi's height, with a striped shirt and blue shorts. His clothes were different than Luigi's surprisingly clean green shirt and blue overalls, and as Luigi examined the boy's red hat, he realized too that the boy looked like his clothes just got cleaned as well.

With a cough the boy turned over, revealing a bright expressive face, which was pinched with an emotion Luigi couldn't quite determine. With a gasp of surprise the boy jumped back from Luigi, and the green clothed plumber realized who it was.

"Ness! What's going on?" Luigi asked.

"You don't know?"

"Obviously not," Luigi said, ruffling the back of his head in evident confusion.

Before either could continue the conversation, the ground shook around them. Startled, both of them almost fell to their knees, but managed to keep their balance. With a terrible grating noise huge chunks of the ground ripped up from their perch and formed floating platforms. Other larger chunks dropped down in a circular pattern, until somehow the endless plain had become quite endful.

They were on a much smaller strip of land that was floating over an endless expanse of blue nothing, while five or so platforms of various lengths were situated around the edge, some of which of were moving up and down, and the others horizontally.

"What the?" Luigi said, scooching towards the center of the arena, while Ness stared around in confusion.

An answer came to him, but unfortunately it was not a pleasant one.

"Combatants ready?" A booming, but somewhat familiar voice yelled. The very power of the voice caused Luigi's knees to shake.

"What? Ready for what?" Luigi asked, while Ness cocked his head.  
"Your battle of course," the voice said in a slightly mocking tone.

"Battle against what?" Luigi demanded, trying very hard not to be terrified.

"Each other."  
There were several moments of silence before Luigi laughed.

"You've got to be joking! We're not going to fight! Why would we?"  
Whatever meager confidence Luigi managed to summon in that time vanished when he heard the voice laugh, deep and booming.

"Because the winner will go free," the voice told him, after it was done laughing.

"That wouldn't motivate-AGH!" Luigi started to say before Ness slammed him in the stomach with his bat.

"Begin!"  
Luigi groaned and clutched his stomach, which was kind of foolish because it allowed Ness to bash him in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground.

Ness reared back to beat Luigi some more, but the plumber wasn't as wounded as he appeared: His leg flashed out, catching the short Ness in the stomach, and knocking him to ground, and forcing his bat to go clattering away. Luigi hopped up to his feet, quickly overcoming his pain.

"Ness! What are you doing?" Luigi asked, maintaining a wary distance from Ness, and keeping between him and the bat.

"Getting out of here!" Ness said, dashing for the bat, but a quick punch from Luigi knocked the boy back.

"You can't trust that voice! It might not be telling the truth!"  
"I don't care! I want OUT!" Ness said, this time diving for Luigi, yanking a yo-yo out of his pocket and swinging it at the plumber.

This was not the first time Luigi had seen this attack however, and while the speed was startling, Luigi still managed to duck under the high attack and grab the yo-yo as it came over his head.

"Let go!" Ness demanded, sounding for a second like a petulant kid.

"No way!" Luigi said, using Ness's momentum, and his superior strength, to lift him up and flip him over Luigi in order to slam the lighter boy hard onto the ground. With a sharp yank, Luigi than pulled the yo-yo from Ness's loosened grip, and tossed the yo-yo on top of one of the platforms.

"Are you done yet?" Luigi asked.

"Am I free yet?" Ness said, aiming a weak kick from the ground that Luigi easily dodged.

With a cry of frustration Luigi lunged forward and grabbed Ness, lifting him up into the air, pinning his arms to his sides, and keeping him far enough away so that he was unable to kick at Luigi.

"Now listen here you-" Luigi started to say before a dark swirling tear in the sky ripped open…and deposited a tall man dressed in tight bright colored clothes. He bore a racing helmet that obscured his eyes, making them appear like glowing white shapes that lent him a decidedly creepy appearance.

"Captain Falcon?" both Luigi and Ness said.

"That's right and I'm…wait…what's going on here?" Captain Falcon said in a disturbingly manly voice.

"Ness…the voice," Luigi started to say, but it wasn't necessary, as Falcon quickly came to a conclusion. Of course it was the wrong one.

"Luigi! I know Ness is a whiny little-" Falcon started to say before Ness's cry of outrage drowned out the word, "but that's no reason to beat on him!"

"I'm not-" Luigi started to say, before Ness took advantage of the distraction to slip out of Luigi's grip and drop heavily on the ground in a manner that made it appear as if Luigi violently tossed him down.

"Agh!" Falco said at this seeming brutality, "Looks like I'm going to have to teach you a lesson, you plumber you," Falcon said, before dashing forward at a frighteningly high speed, "Falcon Justice!"

"This is going to hurt!"

_**The Pit of Ends…**_

The Smashers tumbled to their doom. The hole that K. Rool had tricked them into falling into had no bottom, and they were forced to fall for all eternity. Kidding!  
Actually there was a bottom, and they were falling towards it quite quickly, so they ceased their screaming, and those that could act, did.  
Kirby floated over to Link and grabbed him, and despite Link's extra weight, he was able to slow him down considerably. Meta Knight performed a similar action with Bario and Diddy grabbed Raichu and used his jetpack to prevent their untimely death. Mario pulled on his cape and using his great strength he plucked both Falco and Samus out of the air and deposited them safely to the ground.

Grumbling the Smashers didn't waste any time celebrating their survival and turned their attention to the opening high above them. They couldn't see K. Rool, but they could see it closing, and in seconds their only way out was gone. Seeing no other alternative they started to explore the new place they were in.

A bright orange-ish light permeated the entire chamber, revealing to the group that they were on a very large rectangular stretch of land, with a considerable gap between the block they were on and the wall. A cursory examination by Link revealed that the light was because of a thick river of lava flowing a hundred feet or so beneath their feet.

"Great, how do we get out of here now?" Falco asked.

"Diddy?" Raichu asked, turning expectantly to his friend.  
"What?" Diddy asked, surprised that he was even being asked, "I don't know what K. Rool is planning!"  
"Well somebody better come up with something fast, or this is "adventure" is going to be very over," Link said grumpily.

"Everybody calm down. I can't imagine K. Rool just leaving here to die a slow death by starvation or something…I'm sure some giant monster that Diddy thought had been killed will soon reveal itself and then we'll kill it and figure out how to move on," Bario said matter-of-factly.

"Wow," Samus said, smiling a bit at Bario's words, "These villains are getting really predictable."  
"If they are so predictable, than where is the beast?" Meta Knight inquired.

A loud rumbling followed immediately after his words and a large chute opened up near the ceiling. Immediately after that a massive brown wheel came rolling out at a high speed and crashed very hard into the ground only a dozen feet or so from the closest Smashers.

"Right there," Falco said, as the Smashers instinctively backed up and aimed their weapons at the new foe.

It unfolded itself into a huge creature, with the brown wheel turning out to be the thick, metallic, armored, hinged shell of a pink and ridiculously large armadillo that stood a good three of four times higher than Link or Bario, and was longer still. It had wide expressive eyes, but they didn't detract from its frightening mass. It laughed at them in a high pitch as they gaped at its largeness. This than was Army Dillo.

They didn't spend much time gaping however, as they've been confronted with far worse in the past, and they would have opened fire, if it wasn't for the large roar behind them. Spinning around they saw another large beast detach itself from the darkness in the opposite corner of where the now closed chute Army Dillo had come from and fly over to the platform, trapping the Smashers between the two.

It was a massive red dragon-like creature, with clear dragonfly like wings. It was of equivalent size to Army Dillo, but this monstrosity stood erect with a thick snout full of relatively small, but sharp teeth, and long thin arms ending in dangerous looking claws. It had a long tail topped with the same pointy yellow triangles that ran down its back and ended in a spade-shaped tip. Its tiny dark eyes were protected by a thick bony brow. This than was Dogadon.

The arrival of a second massive beast startled them long enough for Army Dillo to begin his attack. Panels located on the side of his shell retracted and two large cannons popped out, (literally popped, it is unclear how exactly they had fit in there) and aimed them at the Smashers. The brown plated armor on his back partially stretched out, until it completely covered his face, protecting his body from a frontal assault.

Dogadon reared back and let loose a massive flaming ball of…snot? Apparently. Any ways the attack, which was as large as most of our heroes flew towards the Smashers, who dodged and started to fire on Dogadon…at the same time that Army Dillo began shooting smaller, but still huge balls of fire from his cannons at them.

Where the balls hit, the ground seemed to shake slightly, and the small explosion resulting from the balls, and the small waves of flame, caused the Smashers to focus more on evading than on countering.

After several close calls however, Raichu managed to get enough time to fire a bolt of electricity at Army Dillo, at the same instant Samus fired a stun blast at him. The attacks connected on opposite sides, and despite the armor, the electric attacks appeared to do some damage.

Samus's fizzled out pretty quick, but the more powerful volt from Raichu quickly washed over Army Dillo, forcing his armor up and revealing his head, which was quivering from the amplification the electric attack received from his metal armor. The small bolts crackling across Army Dillo quickly reached his two cannons, and with a small explosion, they both popped off and rolled into the lava.

At the same time, Diddy and Link managed to slam Dogadon with their respective explosives. The attacks caught him in the face, and with a cry of rage and surprise his wings gave out and plunged him into the lava, leading to his certain doom.

Actually not. With yet another roar Dogadon burst from the flames a hundred feet below and flapped back up, his body scorched and sizzling. Falco, Mario, Bario and Meta opened fire, but with the element of surprise gone, their attacks were ignored. Bright yellow beams of energy flared from Dogadon before he leaned forward and blasted a massive wall of fire onto the stage that quickly expanded to cover it from one side to the next and grew to over ten feet in height.

Meanwhile, Samus, Raichu and now Kirby were attempting to focus on Army Dillo, but the shouts from the others as they backed away from the encroaching wall of flame distracted them long enough for Army Dillo to leap up and surround himself entirely in his armor, turning again into a massive wheel.

The characters backing away from the wall of flame quickly bumped into the ones backing away from the wheel of Dillo. Realizing that there wasn't a lot of time they dashed to opposite sides of the giant beast and ran to the opposite end of the arena from Dogadon.

Army Dillo slammed into the wall of flame, and for a second it looked like he was going to take some serious damage…but his armored body overpowered it and the flames dissipated, although Army Dillo was very much slowed down.

Dogadon stared at the Smashers for a bit, before roaring and releasing more giant snot balls. Army Dillo had two more panels pop out of his side that revealed large engine like devices that flipped down and pointed at the ground. Apparently they were some kind of jetpack thing, because as soon as they started whirring, Army Dillo was lifted into the air.

The Smashers managed to regain their composure long enough to fire a few attacks at Army Dillo, but they bounced or dissipated harmlessly against his mighty armor.

In retaliation Army Dillo deactivated his jets, slamming him into the ground and creating a massive green shockwave, which spread out in a circular fashion. This was not the first time the group had dealt with shockwaves before however, and the attack was easily hopped over.

Dogadon had paused in his attacks while Army Dillo performed its shockwave, but now Army Dillo was floating back up into the air and Dogadon was shooting out the flaming balls of snot again.

Determined to at least do some damage, the Smashers focused their attacks on Dogadon, the less armored of the deadly duo. Most of the attacks were minor annoyances, but Link's bomb arrows, and Mario's firebombs seemed to do considerable damage to the dragon-like beast.

While the Smashers attacked Dogadon, Army Dillo partially unrolled out of its shell, and while still floating in midair it summoned its ultimate weapon…a massive cannon unfurled out of its top shell, almost as large as Army Dillo itself and it began firing humongous fireballs at the Smashers.

The attack came as a surprise, and Mario and Kirby were both grazed by near misses that sent them almost tumbling off the edge of the arena.  
Fortunately the attack ended soon, and with a desire to end the battle, Army Dillo launched a huge missile that homed in on Diddy. Its red tip and painted teeth served to make it look absolutely absurd, but dangerous nonetheless.

Diddy however had encountered this particular attack before, and utilizing his maneuverability he managed to get it to go right behind him. Leading it on he dived towards a confused Dogadon who apparently was going to fall for a very simple trick.

Diddy jumped up towards Dogadon and then dropped down fast. The missile went up…but didn't go down fast enough to miss hitting Dogadon on the right side.

With a mighty explosion and a pained shriek, Dogadon careened out of control until it hit Army Dillo, sending both of them crashing onto the far side of the platform, forcing the entire thing to shake.  
Unbalanced they struggled to right themselves, but it was over for them.

"Fire!" Bario commanded, and the Smashers launched every attack they had.

Already unsteady, the jumbled mass of dragon and mammal lost their tenuous grip on the platform, and plummeted a hundred feet into a deep lake of lava.

Even then Dogadon might have returned if not for the weight of Army Dillo holding him down. The thick armor managed to protect most of Army Dillo, but the liquid flames seeped through the cracks and openings and melted the creature in a short time.

In a matter of moments both were dead and the pink dust that floated up from their charred carcasses healed the wounded Smashers.

"Well…that was an unnecessary waste of time," Raichu said.

"Why?" Diddy asked.

"Why didn't K. Rool just drop us into the lake of lava, instead of dispatching two minor villains that have beaten before?"  
"Uh…,"

Before Diddy could attempt to answer the question a shudder rippled through the platform they were on, and a strange feeling passed through the group.

"What was that?" Falco asked.

"I'm…not sure," Bario answered.

"Are…we moving?" Samus asked.

Struck by a sudden suspicion Diddy dashed to the edge of the platform they were on. A quick glance of the edge confirmed the sinking feeling in his gut.

"Hey guys," Diddy called, just loud enough to be heard, "We **are** moving. Down."  
It looked like the lake of lava was going to claim nine more victims.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After K. Rool closed the only exit to the chamber he sent the Smashers down, he spent at least 45 seconds laughing to himself, as he was quite pleased with his evil plan. However he quickly became suspicious of his victory and began to doubt the capabilities of his minions. So he decided he would take action, and finish them once and for all.

With a ridiculously dramatic gesture he hurled his scientist garb off, the lab coat and gloves crumpling into a corner. Temporarily unclothed, the naked tyrant quickly managed to produce his red cape and crown and with more dramatic flourish than necessary plopped them back on his head.  
He then dashed through a small door on the side of the room opposite of that which the Smashers came through. Well, relatively small. Since it had to fit his massive bulk it was easily within the size limit of "Crazy Huge," but other than that, it was a rather unremarkable door. It was a made of a typical, plain brown wood that was quite uninteresting. Really, there was nothing even remotely noteworthy about the door…so why this paragraph is focusing on the door is a complete mystery.

After charging through the unexceptional door, and leaving it in small wooden pieces, K. Rool was on the outer part of his fortress, on the narrow strip of land that circled it and separated it from the ocean. Continuing to run K. Rool looped around the back of his fortress until he came to a large pier.

The pier stretched out for about twenty or so feet, terminating well into the ocean, but other than the impressive width of the pier, it was not anything particularly interesting.

He dashed to the end of the pier, with the thick wood shaking beneath his clawed feet, until he came to a silver metal hatch appropriately sized for his body and leapt into it.

He hit the metal floor beneath the hatch with a loud thud, his weight causing the area he was in to slosh a bit in the water.

He was in what appeared to be some kind of aqua-marine vessel, like something one would use to travel beneath the water in some kind of…below-marine. It consisted of one large room with no distinguishing features that had a large screen on one side, a glass screen on the other, showing a clear blue underwater view and a jumble of complicated controls.

A handful of his green crocodilian minions were fidgeting around with the machinery strewn throughout the vessel, but K. Rool ignored them.

Not wasting any time he confidently strode to a control panel and with a flick of a switch, closed the hatch. He was about to wrap his large hands around a large lever, when the screen flickered and a familiar face appeared.

"I trust you have taken care of them?" a booming voice asked, causing K. Rool to jump and face the green-skinned, red-haired man. His Kremlings ignored the voice.

"Taken care of…oh, yes!" K. Rool answered, whatever evil charm he had managed to gather collapsing in the face of Ganondorf's superior malice.

"Really?" Ganondorf asked, cocking his head with a skeptical look in his eye.

"Well, no not yet. But they are as good as gone! Just give me a little while and they'll all be very dead!"  
"Good. We have started the tournament, and things are proceeding well. I want all loose ends wrapped up as soon as possible," Ganondorf said.

"So…I'll be going now," K. Rool said, hesitantly turning back to his controls.

"Wait!" Ganondorf commanded, forcing K. Rool to turn back quickly.

"Y-yes?"  
"M. C. has decided to change our mission," Ganondorf said, in a manner that indicated he was not pleased.

"J-just now?"  
"What?" Ganondorf said, confused by the question.

"Did he change it just now?"  
" What do you mean by…oh…no. It is why I contacted you," Ganondorf said, irritated by the digression.

"What is the change?"  
"He wants as many of them as alive as possible, so if you can, refrain from killing them. He was especially clear in that he wanted the violet-haired swordsman captured."  
"Captured? But it would be easier to kill them!"  
"I know, but orders are orders," Ganondorf said, with a hint of sympathy.

"O-okay," K. Rool said, upset by the change in plans.

"Now go!" Ganondorf said, before cutting off the communication.

Clearly Ganondorf was exerting his dominance over K. Rool, and the fact that he had mentioned those crucial orders as a last-minute addition was making the reptilian king quite upset. But he daren't go against M.C.'s orders and Ganondorf was technically his superior…for now.

K. Rool stared at the ocean for a short while before sighing and manipulating the controls to his under-marine he managed to get it to travel into deeper waters. Maneuvering it around the island he aimed it at a large section of the rock the island was based on.

"Can't let them die…so…I have to do this," K. Rool said, before slamming the throttle down and sending the aquatic craft full speed…into the solid rock of the island itself.


	38. Reptilian Wrath

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Thirty-Eight: Reptilian Wrath**

Luigi ducked under Captain Falcon's high kick and struck out with a fireball to the chest, knocking him off balance. Taking advantage of that momentary loss of focus Luigi dashed forward, hitting Falcon with several fast, but weak punches.

Falcon took the hits though, and countered with a powerful elbow to Luigi's chest, sending the plumber sprawling. Luigi rolled with the blow and managed to get to his feet with a skilled flip, but that sent him right into the path of a shoulder ram from Falcon.

Ness meanwhile crawled away while the two were fighting and grabbed his bat. Watching them carefully he managed to leap to the platform with his yo-yo. Armed with his weapons again, Ness stayed on his slowly moving platform and decided to watch the show.

"Falcon! Don't do this!" Luigi cried, barely recovering from the shoulder ram and was now dodging a flurry of punches that made his appear weak.

"Sorry Luigi, but we have to stick together…and if I have to beat some sense in you to keep you from attacking helpless kids, then so be it! Falcon Uppercut!" Captain Falcon said, his voice oozing self-righteousness, and with his fist oozing flames he slammed Luigi high into the air.

He dove up after him, hoping to trap him in a Falcon dive, but Luigi countered first with a Luigi Tornado, an attack very similar to Mario's Tornado in that they spun around quickly with arms outstretched. However while Luigi's was less powerful, the speed of the attack allowed him to travel upwards during the spin. Falcon was trapped in the attack, and Luigi finished it with a powerful midair karate chop that knocked Falcon out of the air and onto the ground. Luigi dropped to the ground next to him, but stumbled and fell.

Falcon took advantage of that mistake and aimed a powerful kick from a level position at Luigi's prone body. The blow knocked the wind out of him and sent him rolling. Falcon leapt to his feet, but Luigi managed to pull through in time to get to his feet as well and the two faced each other, fists raised, but both reluctant to continue the contest.

"Well Luigi, are you sorry now?" Falcon asked.

"I didn't do anything! Ness attacked me!"  
"Sure he did! And that's why he's lying there in pain!" Falcon said, gesturing to where Ness had laid, but not taking his eyes off Luigi.

Luigi glanced over, and then turned back as Falcon started to rant about justice. Suddenly his eyes widened and he realized something.

"And with my Fist of Falcon Might you will realize that we can escape and that we will beat the Hands. My amazing Falcon Power will guide us and-" Falcon was cut off by a loud shout from Luigi.

"Hey! Falcon!"  
"What?" Falcon asked, irritated by his Falcon Speech being interrupted.

"Where's Ness?"  
"He's right…where?" Falcon said, surprised to see Ness not where he thought he was, "Where'd he go?"

While Falcon and Luigi looked frantically around for Ness, a large green pulsating ball slowly floated in between them.

"What's that? Is it some kind of non-Falcon thing?" Falcon asked, attempting to sound more manly than he normally does.

"I'm not sure…it looks kind of familiar-AGH!"  
Luigi and Captain Falcon were both startled, and in serious pain when the ball exploded, zapping both of them with strange tendrils that shocked them with psychic power. The two fell to their knees.

"Ha! That worked perfectly," Ness said, hopping off his platform, "My PK Flash took care of you two _like that_!" he finished, snapping his fingers.  
"Luigi," Falcon muttered, gathering his strength, "Why is Ness attacking us?"  
"Why don't you ask him?" Luigi said, irritated that only now was Falcon starting to doubt Ness's innocence.

"Hey uh Ness…why are you attacking me?" Falcon demanded, staggering to his feet.

"Because if I beat you two, I will be freed from this stupid prison place!" Ness said, a slight tic appearing on his left eye.

"Says who?" Falcon asked, as Luigi stood up as well, although both were smarting from the injuries they've received.

"Says the ambiguous voice that can't be trusted," Luigi answered.

"It's the only option open to me!" Ness shouted.

"It is NOT! If we work together we can figure something out! You just have to be patient!" Luigi pleaded.

"I will not wait! I want to get out NOW!"  
"You won't! That voice is just tricking you!"  
"You don't know that!"  
"Neither do you! You're taking a huge risk!" Luigi answered.

"I don't care; I have to take the chance! This could be my ticket out of here, and if you big meanies won't let me go, I'll just have to fry you where you stand!"  
"FALCON JECTION!" Captain Falcon shouted, pointing his index finger dramatically at Ness.

Ness and Luigi stared at Falcon.

"What did you just say?" Luigi asked.

"It's not important," Falcon told him, "What is important is that despite the fact that I have no idea what either of you are talking about when you mention a voice, and the fact that I don't particularly like either of you because of your lack of manliness, Luigi does have a point, and together we stand a better than average chance of stopping our captors. A Falcon Chance! What do you say Ness?" Falcon asked, placing his hands dramatically on his hips.

"I say…PK FIRE!" Ness shouted, jabbing both hands forward.

What looked like a multi-colored miniature lightning bolt shot out of both hands at Falcon and Luigi, who both rolled away from the attack. Where the bolts hit the ground, six-foot high columns of flame erupted.  
"Looks like I'm going to have to beat some sense in you. Falcon Sense!"  
"Falcon, stop talking about beating sense into people…and just do it!" Luigi said, charging for Ness.

Ness rolled under Luigi's initial punch, but Falcon's leg caught him in the face, snapping his head back. A side kick from Luigi then knocked the diminutive psychic forward again, right into an elbow from Falcon.

Ness flew far from the elbow, but in midair he managed to use some of his psychic abilities to straighten himself out, and with a cry of "PK Thunder!" Ness shot out a blue line of lightning that ended in a glowing sphere that crackled with psychic energy. Slowing his fall Ness directed the bolt to hit him from behind, the psychic energy temporarily turning Ness into a powerful missile that slammed into Captain Falcon's chest, sending him flying towards the edge of their floating platform.

Before Ness could revel in his success, Luigi shot into him head first from the side, like some kind of green missile. Ness was launched towards a charging Falcon and was hit by a…well, Falcon can describe it better.

"Falcon Punch!" Falcon shouted, thrusting his fist forward, a flaming falcon appearing around it, and smashed Ness in the chest. The mighty blow drove Ness to the ground where he lay struggling to move.

"No…I…must…recover!"  
"No, we must restrain," Luigi said, grabbing Ness and holding his arms down…although Luigi knew if Ness had any fight left in him that holding him down wouldn't stop him from fighting back. However, the beating he took seemed to have drained him of energy, and indeed, several of his facial features looked like they would be drained of their current appearance as large bruises were already starting to form.

"Well, that'll teach him," Falcon said, quite proud of himself.

Luigi ignored Falcon and turned his head towards the sky.

"The fight's over! No one won! It was a tie! Are you happy now?"

"Luigi…I'm over here, not in the sky. Pay attention to the one who Falcon Punched the way to victory! My moves were showed! Ha ha ha!" Falcon said, still reeling with self-pride.

Before either could say anything else, the mysterious…yet familiar voice boomed again.

"Oh yes…I am very happy. And since it was a tie, well…"

"I know, no one wins, right? So we're still trapped?" Luigi asked sarcastically.

"On the contrary. Since it was a tie…everyone wins. And you get to be free. From here," the voice said, before laughing maniacally.

"Wow…there really is a voice," Falcon said.

"Yeah, I know. But what does it mean by," Luigi started to say before the ground moved beneath him.

"What was that?" Falcon said, struggling to stay on his feet as the stage jerked to the right.

"I-if I knew I would-"

The stage suddenly flipped upside down, dropping the three shrieking into the bright, blue abyss…

_**In the Endful Pit…**_

"We need to get out of here!" Diddy shouted.

"We know, we know!" Samus said, attempting to stay calm.

"There's no exits, no escape, no nothing!" Raichu yelled, after a frantic search by everyone revealed that they were indeed trapped.

"Samus, is there any way for you to call your ship down and get us out of here?" Meta Knight asked.

Samus paused for a moment, as if considering the request, but with another unpleasant lurch the platform they were on dropped several feet. Samus shook her head.

"We don't have enough time…and it couldn't blow its way in here anyways."

Link suddenly spun towards Bario.

"Bario! You can get us out of here!"  
"I can?"  
"Yes! Make a portal! Fast!"  
"Make one? Where?" Bario asked, off-put by the demands.

"It doesn't matter! Just do it!"  
"But if I don't know where to send us, we could end up anywhere!"  
"Like that matters NOW!" Link said, gesturing to the lava.

"Oh…right," Bario said, abashed.  
The others backed off as he clasped his hands in front of him. In seconds a purple sphere started to appear in front of his hands. Before it could grow however, there was a tremendous scraping noise…and a massive metal object crashed through one of the rock walls, its pointed front enabling it to shatter the rock easily.

"HOLY H-KITTENS BARIO-MAN!" Falco said in complete and total pants-wetting surprise.

"What did you just say?" Bario asked, the sphere dissipating as he lost his concentration.

"What is that?" Raichu asked.

His question was not answered as gallons upon gallons of icy, cold ocean water came pouring through the massive crack the object had created. It splashed into the magma seething only a few feet beneath their feet, and the entire chamber soon filled with steam.

"No way," Diddy said in shock, "That's K. Rool's personal submarine-the Knautilus!"

"What's it doing here?" Link demanded as more and more water gushed into the chamber.

"I have no idea!"  
There was a loud whirring noise as the Knautilus attempted to pull out of the hole it created, but the awkward downward angle and the gallons of water pouring in from the sides made it difficult.

"Well," Bario said, as the steam started to fade, "Looks like we don't have to worry about the lava anymore."

The others followed his gaze and saw that while the platform was still dropping slowly, water was coming up over the sides. Hot water, but at least it wasn't lava. All the lava appeared to have had solidified when it came in contact with the cold water.

"Well, that's great…but we still need to get out of here, so what do we do?" Link asked, looking pointedly at Bario.

"Well…," Bario started to say, before a creaking noise sounded and the Knautilus jerked forward several feet, widening the hole and allowing more water to gush in.

"If you have any ideas, now would be a great time to TELL US!" Falco shouted.

"We have to get on top of the Knautilus!" Bario said as water reached up to his knees and was rising fast.

"How? It's too high," Samus said, as indeed, the bottom part of the Knautilus was about twenty feet over their heads.

"Simple. We swim." Bario stated.

_**Inside the Knautilus…**_

K. Rool frantically yanked at the controls but no matter what he did he couldn't move his sub out of the hole he created.

"Krap!" K. Rool said, slamming his mighty fist down on the panel, "I just wanted to stop them from dying, not trap my vehicle here! YOU!" K. Rool shouted pointing at one of his trembling minions.

"Y-yes your Kruddiness?" The Kremling asked respectfully, lowering his head.

"Get us out of here!"  
"I'm sorry your Kingliness, but this vehicle was not designed for crashing through sixteen feet of solid rock and then removing itself afterwards. It's not possible!" the Kremling said, nearly quaking in fear.

"Not the answer I wanted to hear!" K. Rool said, grabbing the Kremling by its throat and hoisting the hapless creature up.

"Please sir, there is not-nothing I-I c-c-can do!" the Kremling squeaked.

With a growl of rage K. Rool flung the Kremling at a glass case on the floor. The glass shattered and the Kremling flopped onto a red button that had been inside the glass. There was a bright flash and K. Rool smiled.

"Let's hope that does what it's supposed to."  
The other Kremlings stared in horror at their unconscious companion, but a glare from K. Rool sent them flying back to work.

"Get this thing out of here!" K. Rool said, storming towards a door in the back of the chamber.

"Where are you going sir?" One of the braver Kremlings asked.

"I'm going to pay a visit to our friends," K. Rool said, his grin widening.

_**In the rapidly growing lake…**_

With the continued downward motion of the platform, and the rapidly increasing water growth the Smashers were soon paddling frantically to stay afloat.

"I hope this fills fast, because this gear is not making swimming very easy," Link said, struggling hard to stay swimming.

"Okeydokey!" Mario said, clasping his cape on and floating out of the water.

"What are you-hey!" Link shouted as Mario grabbed him and carried him towards the Knautilus.

Falco was also having difficulty staying afloat, as his body was not designed for sustained swimming.

"Help!" Falco yelled, before bobbing beneath the surface.

"Remain calm," Meta Knight stated, flapping out of the water and towards Falco.

"Easy for you to say!" Falco spluttered, paddling his way back up.

"Hold on," Meta said, flying low enough for Falco to grab onto his body.  
"Are you sure you can-AGH!" Falco said as Meta easily lifted the bird into the air.

"You have hollow bones," Meta stated, "So your weight is quite low."  
"Uh…thanks, I guess."  
Diddy grinned at Raichu.

"Will it work wet?" Raichu asked, nervous about the idea Diddy had in mind.

"Here's hoping," Diddy said, paddling towards his friend and wrapping his tail around him. With a quick leap Diddy was in the air, and activating his jetpack…which apparently worked fine wet.

Kirby floated up after them and the seven Smashers dropped down in various stages of grace on top of the Knautilus. Momentarily frightened that the occupants of the submarine would try to shake them off Diddy made sure to grab on quickly to the slick wet metal surface of the sub. That fear quickly vanished soon though as nothing happened. Apparently the occupants weren't interested in removing their "passengers."

Bario and Samus were the only ones left in the water now, and while Bario was an adequate swimmer, Samus was clearly an exceptional one. Her Zero-Suit allowed a range of movement for her that enabled her to easily stay atop the now warm shifting waters, while Bario had to struggle to avoid getting water in his mouth.

"Come on," Samus said, gesturing towards the Knautilus, which was rapidly approaching, and raising her Paralyzer.

"What…oh!" Bario said, splashing towards her.

Link leaned over the side to see if Samus needed help…only to see Bario wrap his arms around her waist as she shot her yellow energy whip up towards the Knautilus. It grabbed on and pulled the two up and over the side. As soon as they were safely on the ground, Bario let go with a vaguely embarrassed look. Link glared at him, but a sudden lurch from the Knautilus prevented any kind of communication.

"We need to get moving!" Bario said, taking charge, "We'll have to try and swim through the hole on top of the ship!"

"Agreed," Meta said, his wide feet easily finding purchase on the treacherous ground.

The others nodded, and with varying degrees of success the Smashers plodded up the top of the Knautilus as water poured in from all sides of the hole.  
As they neared the hole the force of the water became greater, and it took all their strength not to be blown off the Knautilus, although with another lurch the sub jerked up, essentially plugging the hole…and allowing the water to shoot through the bottom that much faster.

"Great! Now what do we do?" Falco asked, as everyone dropped to the top of the Knautilus, grabbing onto some of its grooves and rivets.

"I don't know," Bario said, a look of concern on his face, their only escape completely unreachable.

Suddenly the Knautilus jerked back, and with the sound of a thousand angry kittens rubbing their tails on sandpaper, it screeched back through the opening it created.  
"Oh crud…everyone jump!" Diddy said, realizing that they would be scraped off by the top of the hole.

Following his lead they all jumped back into the water that was now halfway up the hole. They weren't in the water long before the Knautilus put on an extra burst of speed and shot backwards out of the hole…dragging the Smashers with it.

The force of the sudden vacuum sucked the Smashers through and soon they were completely submerged in the ocean, and their momentum quickly placed them a few feet over a rapidly sinking Knautilus.

Apparently the force required to get it out of its prison caused it to scrape on the rock walls, opening up several shallow tears in the submarine, and filling with water it was quickly dipping deeper into the ocean.

However the Smashers cared little about the state of the sub as they paddled frantically to reach the surface. They were easily more than sixty feet below the ocean's surface, and while Samus and Mario were powering through the water, several of the others were not doing so well…and Link and Falco were actually starting to sink.

Things looked bad for them until a hatch opened up on the top of the Knautilus and a green…something, came shooting up at a ridiculous speed. It slammed into all nine of the Smashers and propelled them upwards. The force of the impact was lessened because of the impact, but they were still all stunned as the large green vehicle carried them to "safety".

They reached the surface in seconds, and with a quick shake, the vehicle dumped its passengers back into the water where they frantically swam towards solid ground. Before any of them could do anything, the vehicle flew to the top of the fortress and vanished from view as it set down on the roof.

The Smashers reached the edge of the island the fortress was on, and with everyone helping they managed to get even the poor swimmers onto dry land. They took a minute to catch a breather, but a loud cheering from the roof caused them to turn their attention to that.

"Diddy…what's that noise?" Raichu asked.

"I don't know…but it sounds really familiar," Diddy said, straining to remember.

"There has to be some way up there," Bario said, looking at the wall of the fortress.  
The gray stone was smooth and solid, and the fortress itself was far too high for most of them to jump…even Kirby wouldn't reach the top. Bario started to walk to see where the fortress looped…and that's where he found it.

"Hey! Everyone! Over here!" Bario called from just out of sight.

Startled everyone ran over and saw Bario…staring at the fortress wall.

"What?" Link asked, still apparently angry with Bario.

"Look!"  
They looked.  
"A ladder?" Samus said, surprised by the convenience.

There was indeed a ladder that appeared to be attached at the top. Link walked over to it and ran his fingers over its wooden slats.

"No dust. This was just dropped down."  
"What's that mean?" Falco asked.

"It means K. Rool wants us to climb this ladder. He wants us up there," Meta said, staring at the roof of the fortress.

"Should we?" Raichu asked.

"This could be our chance to finish off another tyrant," Bario said.

"Yeah, but that's not really what we're trying to do," Link said.

"It isn't? What are we trying to do then?" Diddy asked sharply.

"I thought we were trying to take down Master Hand," Link said, surprised by Diddy's vehemence.

"We are…and the best way to do that is to get rid of his support," Bario said, "and I'm betting K. Rool is one of his biggest supporters."  
"I say we go for it," Samus said.

"What? Why?" Link asked, surprised.

"I think we can take him…and one less villain is one less thing to worry about later," Samus said.

Link seemed upset about the prospect of fighting K. Rool, but he acknowledged that his feelings against it existed mostly because Bario **wanted** to do it. But if Samus wanted to do it too…

"Fine."  
"Let's go," Diddy said, clearly anxious to finish this.

Without another word he leapt up the rickety ladder and began to climb, closely followed by the others. One by one they climbed…and one by one they reached the top.

As soon as they reached the top the cheering stopped. Diddy immediately leapt forward and pulled out his peanut popguns, and everyone else upon seeing what was waiting for them followed his lead. They formed a tight circle, weapons ready, but reluctant to make the first move.

The roof was covered with dozens…no, more than a hundred of K. Rool's minions. Kritters, also more broadly known as Kremlings were the standard minions and they were numerous, their man-sized bulk and sharp claws gave them a menacing appearance.

There were also Klaptraps, which were low slung blue alligator like creatures, with a mouth full of sharp teeth that was literally half of the creature's body.

A few Klumps, huge brown Kremlings boasting a distended belly and an army helmet were scattered around as well.

Rounding out the swarm of baddies were dark coated blue Kremlings that had a wide variety of hair colors…the mere fact that they had hair was surprising. These ones were called Kasplats, keeping up the tradition of "K" names.

Easily one hundred of these creatures were visible on the roof, and more might have been hidden from view by the massive boxing arena set up in the middle. Yes. Boxing arena.

The Kremlings made no motion to attack, and the Smashers relaxed their guards. By about an inch. Raichu may have stopped producing a volt or two! That's how relaxed they were! A piece of hair on Link's face shifted, and he didn't bother to react! EXTREMELY RELAXED!  
Anyways their attention was drawn to King K. Rool who was standing in the middle of the boxing arena, cloak discarded, apparently replaced by his idea of boxing shorts and shirt. Rounding it off were the bright red boxing gloves on his hands. He might have looked silly…if he wasn't so frighteningly big.

"Welcome to our final arena," K. Rool said, his booming voice echoing around the fortress walls.

"What are you doing?" Diddy demanded.

"Isn't it obvious? We're going to have our final showdown, and I will get rid of you bothersome pests like I would get rid of…something else that is bothersome!" K. Rool said, having apparently not thought out his similes.

"So what's up with the arena?" Falco asked.

"It's simple. I'm going to take you all on one at a time. If any one of you manage to beat me, my loyal subjects will stand down, and we'll all go our separate ways."  
"And if one us loses?" Bario asked.

"Then you're all dead," K. Rool said with a grin. His lackeys snorted and chuckled at that, as if that was the funniest thing they had heard from their boss. The sad part was that it probably was.

"What's to stop us from all attacking you now?" Link demanded, pointing his sword at K. Rool.

"Then my minions will attack…and you will all die anyways."  
At that the Kremling horde snarled and gnashed their teeth.

"If that's true…then I guess we have no choice," Bario said, lowering his weapons.

"That's right, you don't!" K. Rool said gleefully.

"But we're going to take our chances anyways!" Bario finished diving towards a pair of close Kritters and slicing their heads off.

Following his lead the other Smashers charged forward attacking in a tight-knit group, killing several of the Kremlings before they could even retaliate.

"What?" K. Rool roared, his voice causing the arena to shake, "How dare you?! KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!"  
With a collective roar the Kremling army ran to the nine Smashers, determined to rip them limb from limb.

The Smashers retaliated by beating the crap out of them. Meta's sword strikes, coupled with Link's and Bario's kept the Kremlings back as many lost limbs and lives to the dangerous weapons.

Samus, Kirby and Falco danced through the Kremlings, their attacks more damaging than deadly, but they helped prevent the Kremlings from swarming. Their speed and physical prowess had more than one foe on their knees.

Most of Diddy's attacks weren't strong enough to finish off the Kremlings, but he distracted them long enough for Raichu to blast them with powerful bolts of electricity.

Mario was in his own class, possessing great speed and strength it seemed he didn't even need his hammer as with one great blow he crushed a Klump's skull, helmet and all and followed that off by scorching three Kritters with firebombs.

The Kremlings were not without their own resources however. The Kritters weren't much good for more than being meat-shields, but their enthusiasm and numbers made them dangerous.

The Klaptraps sharp teeth were bad, but the true danger came when they took enough damage. They appeared to die, but in reality their body disintegrated, leaving behind only the quick-moving snapping teeth. They were fragile, but Link already had one take a bite out of his leg, and more were appearing as the Klaptraps literally threw themselves at the Smashers.

The Klumps could take a lot of damage, and not only did they attack with powerful punches and kicks, but they also threw a weaker green version of Diddy's orange grenades, and Kirby was already slightly burned from coming to close to one.

The Kasplats were easily the most dangerous of the Kremlings. They were strong and fast enough to at least trade a few blows with the Smashers, and they often attacked by slamming their large gloved fists into the ground, creating a large shockwave.  
Fortunately the Kremlings did not work very well together, and more often than not they ended up hitting each other with grenades or shockwaves…but there were enough of them that it didn't really matter.

The Smashers on the hand, worked together fantastically. All the fighting, both alone and together had transformed this group from a handful of powerful warriors to one of the deadliest teams in this world…and the next. Each one looked out for each other, and when Diddy was about to be stomped on by a Klump, a high kick by Falco prevented it. When Samus was battling a Kasplat, Kirby jumped over and smacked it with his hammer. They were unstoppable…and winning. And K. Rool knew it.

He roared again and started stomping towards the ropes of his arena, determined to join the fight, when Diddy and Raichu hopped up in front of him.

"Sorry K. Rool, but you were right. This is the "Final Showdown", and I'm going to finish you once and for all!" Diddy stated, holstering his popguns and pulling out his guitar.

"You'll try…but you'll fail and meet your final destiny!" K. Rool declared, before throwing a fist at Diddy that was as large as the chimp.

Diddy easily side-stepped the slow attack and slammed his guitar into the fist. However, while K. Rool may be slow, he was also tough and with the added protection from the gloves, he didn't even feel the blow.  
He did feel the bolt of lightning Raichu shot at him from his cheeks. K. Rool shrieked in pain and dashed forward, his bulk sending both flying.  
They recovered quickly and landed on their feet, although they were shaken by the power K. Rool possessed. They faced each other on opposite ends of the arena, shouts and grunts from the battle taking place around them caused none of them to flinch. With a grin K. Rool leapt into the air…and dropped down hard, creating a massive green shockwave.  
It shot out in all directions, quickly crossing the expanse of the arena. Diddy and Raichu managed to leap over it…but the second shockwave following immediately afterwards knocked both flat.

With a wide grin K. Rool stomped towards both felled combatants. They tried to get up, but knew they wouldn't be able to avoid his next strike and they would be crushed. Diddy and Raichu braced themselves…and a flaming meteor slammed into K. Rool's face with enough force to send him leaning back.

Well at least it looked like a meteor. A second later it was revealed to be Falco using that fire ability of his. He back-flipped off K. Rool's face and started pelting him with weak, but painful laser bolts.

"GRAAGH!" K. Rool yelled, swinging wildly, but Falco dodged it easily.  
Raichu and Diddy both got up, but a shout from outside their arena drew their attention.

"AGH!"

Turning towards the shout they saw Samus holding a bleeding wound on her arm, Paralyzer forgotten beside her. The shards of teeth beside her made it obvious that a Klaptrap managed to get to her before she destroyed it.

A quick glance revealed the situation wasn't good. While the Smashers had managed to kill or incapacitate at least sixty of the Kremlings, a good chunk of the more powerful ones remained, and with Diddy, Raichu and now Falco preoccupied with K. Rool the other six were surrounded.  
Diddy evaluated the situation in an instant and leaped over the ropes and towards the Smashers. Hopping over the heads of the Kremlings he joined them in the circle and said only a quick command.

"Stay DOWN!"  
He then leapt into the air…and started playing his guitar. Realizing immediately what he was doing the Smashers dropped…as a massive sound wave emanated from the guitar. The force of it was so great that it was actually visible as a red star that swept through the Kremling ranks, taking them apart. Fortunately the attack missed the Smashers, with it not quite reaching far enough to hit those in the arena, nor low enough to hit the others.

In moments the attack was done, and with the exception of a few to low to be hit Klaptraps all the Kremlings were dead, having had their bodies literally beaten by sound waves. A few magic balls from Bario and an arrow from Link finished off the Klaptraps and in one swift stroke all of K. Rool's army was gone…although now Diddy's guitar was smoking.

Realizing he wouldn't be able to use it for a while as that attack seriously drained its power he pocketed it and pulled out his popguns. He turned back to K. Rool who was attempting to hit the agile Falco and Raichu, and failing miserably. The sound of Diddy's guitar caused him to look up, and see that his army was gone.

"What? Impossible!" K. Rool said, quite shocked.

"Give up K. Rool, we beat your minions, and we're going to beat you!" Diddy said, leaping back up to the arena.

"Oh really?" K. Rool answered, a toothy grin appearing on his face.

Without another word he pulled out a remote with several buttons on it from his shorts pocket. Still grinning he pressed one of the buttons with relish.

A loud whirring noise drew the Smashers attention to a large vehicle on the far corner of the roof. A cursory glance revealed that it was the green, vaguely crocodilian shaped vehicle that had propelled them out of the ocean.

The whirring was the result of a hatch opening up on the side of the ship. And out of the hatch poured out ten of K. Rool's deadliest minions…Krusha's.

They were about the general size and shape of Kasplats, although their muscles were more visible as they had replaced the black coats with sleeveless camo muscle shirts. Each one also carried what looked like a hollow log.

"This isn't even close to being over!" K. Rool stated, "Now ATTACK!"  
The Krusha's grunted in acknowledgement, and began firing exploding oranges from their weapons.

"Ah!" Bario said, barely avoiding an explosion.

K. Rool laughed as the Smashers on the roof frantically attempted to dodge the dangerous attack, but his laugh was abruptly silenced when several peanuts hit him in the face. Growling he turned towards a defiant Diddy. Several small balls of electricity and laser bolts pelted him too, but he ignored them and threw a mighty punch at Diddy.

Diddy easily dodged it and flipped away from K. Rool, firing the whole way. K. Rool snarled and threw another punch, which Diddy didn't even attempt to dodge as he was too far away to be hit…or so he thought.

Diddy realized too late that K. Rool had thrown his glove, and the massive red object slammed into the chimp hard enough to send him skidding across the arena. He managed to hear Raichu cry out his name…before all went black.

_**Somewhere that is not where the place that was mentioned before is…**_

Diddy felt like he woke up almost instantly. A quick look around revealed that he had no idea where he was, but it felt really familiar.

The trees around him were like that of his home, but he was in a clearing that he knew he had never been in before. The sky was as dark as night, but there wasn't a single star or moon in the sky…yet Diddy could see everything around him quite clearly.

He could see clearly enough to see something standing at the far end of the clearing. Blinking his eyes, not daring to believe he started to run towards the figure, holstering his peanut guns so that he could dash on all fours.

He reached the figure in moments, but he knew long before he reached it who it was. It was _her_.

"Dixie?" Diddy said, staying a few feet away, not daring to believe.

"Diddy?" Dixie said, sounding even more startled than he was to see him, her high voice cracking with stress, "What are you doing here?"  
"I thought…I thought you were dead," Diddy managed to say.

"Diddy! You can't stay here! It's not safe!"  
"I'm not leaving you! Not again!"

"Diddy! He's coming! HE IS COMING!" Dixie screamed.

"Who?"  
With a roar a massive creature tore out of the jungle and stomped towards them. It was Bowser, but he seemed even grumpier than usual. Diddy stepped between Dixie and Bowser and pulled out his guns.

"Out of my way monkeys! I'm not here for you!" Bowser stated, his words sounding frighteningly familiar to Diddy.

"No way! You aren't getting past me!"  
"Like you can stop me?" Bowser said.

"I'm going to try!"

Bowser grinned at that, and then with a roar of frightening power…he began to grow. His horns lengthened and curved, his visible scales grew more armored sections, his tail elongated and his snout became more bestial. In a matter of seconds he was as tall as most of the trees, and a good deal bigger. This was Giga Bowser, second only to Master Hand in power.

Dixie let out a small shriek at the sight, and Diddy shook in utter terror…but he managed to aim his guns at Giga's head and open fire as he stomped towards them again.

As Giga ignored the attack he heard Dixie doing something behind him. Turning around he saw her readying her weapon…a crossbow that fired red feathers. It was the same kind as the one Dixie's sister Tiny used, just slightly bigger. The feathers were even weaker than the peanuts, but they fired faster, and because of their pointed tips, they actually stuck inside their victims, causing more pain if they tried to brush them out.

Dixie began shooting her weapon, but in a single quick movement Giga leaned down and knocked Diddy aside with one massive claw as he wrapped his hands around Dixie.

Diddy was sent twenty feet away by Giga's brush-off but he managed to turn himself around after hitting the ground. He saw Giga raise Dixie to his mouth with a casual strength as she frantically fired red feathers at Giga and without even a roar he tossed her into her mouth.

Her shriek fell silent as she disappeared down the monster's gullet, and her name died in Diddy's throat. With a shake of his head, Giga sent the crossbow that was stuck in his teeth flying. It hit the ground by Diddy and shattered, leaving behind a few scattered red feathers.

Diddy grabbed one, and aimed his peanut guns at Giga, determined that _this _time, he would get Dixie back…but before Diddy could open fire, Giga turned towards Diddy, and he froze in terror.

"What now? You still dare to challenge me?" Giga Bowser asked disdainfully.

Diddy struggled to come back with some kind of witty retort, but the same fear that had prevented him from giving chase to Giga the first time this terrible ordeal happened held him back now.

"I didn't think so," Giga said.

Diddy groaned with internal disappointment. He knew that now Giga would leave, his task complete, although Diddy had no idea why Giga Bowser wanted to kill Dixie.  
However Giga surprised Diddy by letting out a sharp grunt of surprise…and pain.

Giga slowly turned his brutish head down and stared at his stomach. Diddy harbored a brief hope that Dixie had somehow survived and was now attacking the inside of the monster that swallowed her…but that thought was quickly dispelled when a silver shard of metal burst through his armored stomach in a spray of crimson blood.  
The object appeared very small, but Diddy soon realized that was only because Giga's massive girth dwarfed it. The object looked familiar, but Diddy couldn't quite place it. And the thing trailing behind it was definitely not familiar.

It was a thick dark purple tentacle tinged with streaks of black. The tendril of dark energy appeared to be controlling the shard of metal, because after wriggling around a little bit it retracted back through Giga, causing him to groan in pain.

Angry now, Giga started to turn around, determined to face whatever dare hurt him so, although his stomach was leaking vital fluids. However when he saw what had damaged him he let out a frightened shriek and started to back up.

He wasn't fast enough though, and soon more shards of metal, connected by the strands of dark energy whipped through his body. Dozens appeared, originating from a point blocked from Diddy's view by Giga's massive body. Like kittens insane with a violent rage they tore through Giga, creating a whirling mass of silver shards and twining tendrils.

Giga Bowser let out a few more yells, but he was silenced, and in seconds he was nothing more than a bloody pile of meat.

Diddy stared at his fallen foe in shock, and as he watched, the tendrils and shards were absorbed into a shapeless purple mass about the size of a man. The mass sent out several tentacles that began to disintegrate and absorb what was left of Giga. In a short while, even the pile of gore had vanished.

Frozen by more than just fear, Diddy could only watch as the mass moved closer, rapidly covering the ground between them. As it progressed forward, the upper portion of the mass began to slowly fade away, revealing a human-like face.

Despite being able to make out the eyes, nose and mouth the face was shrouded in shadow, and Diddy knew he did not want to see who it belonged to. He struggled to turn, to run, to scream, but some mysterious power held him fast and soon the being stood before him.

It raised a tentacle that flowed back to reveal a hand obscured by darkness, and as it reached towards Diddy the being spoke three words that sent an unholy dread through Diddy.

"I AM KIDAR!"

_**Now back to the location this was set at previously…**_

Diddy snapped awake with a start, to see that K. Rool was squaring off against Falco, Raichu, and Mario, while the rest were battling the Krusha's. Diddy, covered in a cold sweat, struggled to get over the nightmare, while Link skewered a Krusha.

Raichu spotted Diddy's consciousness quickly, and stopped his attack long to ask Diddy if he was alright.  
"Yeah, yeah…Yes!" Diddy said, pulling out his guns.

K. Rool frowned at this development, and after swatting away a punch from Mario, he pulled out his remote device and hit a button. Immediately the green air-based vehicle the Krusha's had come out of lifted into the air and turned towards those battling the Krusha's.

"Let's see how you handle several tons of Kremling Kraft slamming into you," K. Rool muttered with a touch of glee.

The Kraft hovered quickly, its massive size becoming quite apparent, and it soon was almost directly above and behind K. Rool. Diddy, Raichu and Falco all seemed paralyzed by the fear that as soon as they moved K. Rool would launch the Kraft and extremely maim, if not kill their friends who were battling the Krusha's, completely oblivious to the threat literally looming over them.

Mario, however was not paralyzed. With a small grin, he gathered his hands together, almost as if he was holding something. K. Rool sent a small glance in Mario's direction, but not sure what was going on, he failed to act. Big mistake.

Mario began to glow a fiery red and a fireball started to appear in his hands. Soon he wasn't glowing, but was actually flaming, and the ground he was on began to smoke. In one quick movement he shot his hands forward…and all hell broke loose.

"Here we go!" Mario shouted, his yell attracting the attention of the five battling the remaining Krusha's.  
Out of his hands massive twin tongues of flame flew out, swirling around each other, each the size of Mario and a lot wider. The air around them was scorched and the entire cylinder of flame was surrounded by sparks of fire. The attack slammed into K. Rool, sending him flying insanely far…and then it crashed into the Kraft.

The blast caused the mighty Kraft to shudder and shake, and for several seconds it seemed like it would be able to resist the forces pummeling it…but then it just seemed to fall apart.

Blackened and smoking from the damage from Mario's Firestorm the pieces of the Kraft fell towards where the engines were about to send it…to those battling the Krusha's, and it seemed as if Mario's tremendous show of strength would do nothing to save his companions.

However, Mario's yell had given them enough time to get out of the path, and the only things that were hit by the Kraft were the surviving Krusha's. Those that weren't Krushed instantly were dragged screaming and resisting by the sliding chunks of the Kraft off the side of the fortress and to their watery grave.

The Smashers quickly regrouped on the boxing ring, and it didn't take long for them to start congratulating Mario.

"Nice!" Falco said, quite impressed.

"I didn't know you could do _that_!" Link said, surprised.

"Thank you for that," Samus said, grateful.

The others echoed similar words of praise and gratitude. They were all a little bruised and banged, but overall they seemed to have come through the battles mostly unharmed. They should have known it wasn't over.

With a roar of rage K. Rool leapt up, his skin singed almost black, and chunks of his clothing were still burning. His boxing gloves had melted off, leaving deep red grooves on his clawed hands. He started to stomp forward, but stopped when all nine Smashers aimed their weapons at him.

"This is it!" Diddy said, all memory of the nightmare shoved to the back of his mind.

It seemed as if K. Rool was finished, as he was too weak to really put up much of a fight…and he knew it. He looked about to surrender…when he began to laugh.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ah aha ha!" K. Rool said, his belly quivering from the force of his maniacal cackle.

"Your actions…don't make any sense," Meta said, confused.

Unfortunately for the Smashers, they did. Five bursts of blue lasers suddenly shot at the Smashers feet and they jumped back. With a laugh that made K. Rool's seem puny a massive white object, easily the size of the tyrant floated over the Smashers and stopped behind K. Rool, before turning and revealing itself as…

"Master Hand!" Bario said, quite surprised.

K. Rool's laughing continued, but it was more confident now. The Smashers recovered quickly, but they looked reluctant to begin a battle against both K. Rool and Master Hand.  
Before they could attack, Master Hand made a decision for them. With a loud expulsion of energy he created a massive portal that was directly behind him, and a little farther behind K. Rool.

"You tried, you really did," K. Rool stated with a self-satisfied smirk, "But it looks like we'll have to call this one a draw. Bye!"  
K. Rool turned and started to walk towards the portal, confident that the others would be unable to stop him. Master Hand floated down a bit, still facing K. Rool and the Smashers, and it appeared that it would be using the portal first. K. Rool stopped to let his boss continue ahead of him.

"No!" Diddy said, "I'm not letting him get away! Not now!"  
Diddy put away one of his peanut guns and placed both hands around the other. Flipping a small switch on the side, the gun soon started to shake. In a few seconds the gun was vibrating like crazy. Diddy pushed the trigger…and the gun exploded, shredding Diddy's hands with shards of wood, and nearly impaling Raichu in the face with a four inch long piece of the destroyed peanut gun.

"AGH!" Diddy cried, falling to the ground and curling his bleeding hands together.

"What?!" Raichu shouted, a cry that was echoed by many of the others.  
However that wasn't the only thing that happened. With the speed of a missile powered by kittens on strength-increasing drugs a single peanut flew from the gun…straight at K. Rool. Unfortunately the vibrations from the gun had thrown Diddy's aim off slightly, and the attack looked like it was about to miss.

It didn't. Its movements obscured by K. Rool, Master Hand stretched its fingers forward and gave K. Rool a small nudge, sending him into the path of the attack.

"What was-" was all K. Rool managed to say before the peanut slammed into the back of his thin and small cranium, and plowed out through the other side, spraying blood, bone and pieces of brain. K. Rool was dead in an instant.

Before his massive carcass hit the ground it exploded into pink dust, which was powerful enough to heal all the wounds, even Diddy's, although it did not restore his weapon. Samus thought she glimpsed some dark purple dust, but it vanished too quickly for her to be sure.

"Looks like things are a little more even now," Bario said, as refreshed as everyone else from the healing energies.

"Let's finish it!" Raichu said, eager to take on Master Hand.

Master Hand was in no mood for battle though, and with a laugh it pointed at the portal, causing it to vanish. Before the others could attack, the Hand pointed at the ground beneath them…creating another portal beneath their feet.

They didn't even have a chance to shout out. The Smashers fell into the portal…and as they fell, Master Hand's laugh deepened…


	39. The King, the Birdy and the Ball of Puff

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Thirty-Nine: The King, the Birdy, and the Ball of Puff**

The journey through the portal was quick. The Smashers had little time to take in their surroundings, which hadn't changed much since their last portal jump, before they were dumped rather rudely at the foot of a large hill.

They landed in a jumbled mess, and it took several minutes for them to untangle themselves, at which point the portal had vanished.

They took a moment to look around in the hopes that they would be able to figure out where they were now. They were on an expansive green field that went on for miles in either direction, with decent sized trees breaking up the monotony of the endless grass. Yellow, plant-like lumps were stationed at various points on the hill. The hill started a few feet in front of them, went up quite a ways, and at the top was what looked like a fortress of some kind.

It was far smaller than K. Rool's fortress, and it was a light brown color. The somewhat impressive front doors had a circular face-like symbol above them, although what it was supposed to be was unclear. Black, circular things rested on the roof. After they got a chance to look around, both Kirby's and Meta Knight's eyes widened in recognition.

"This is Pop Star!" Meta stated.

"Kirby's and Meta's home?" Bario said, confused, "But why would Master Hand send us here?"  
"Isn't it obvious?" Link asked. When the others just looked confused, Link sighed and continued, "Clearly this is another place that the Hands have managed to recruit villains, and they're hoping to stop us here."  
"Oh. Well, we better get going then," Raichu said, as a silent Diddy nodded.

"Going where?" Samus asked.

"To kill whoever is waiting for us here," Falco said, looking eager to keep moving.

"What? Why?" Link demanded.

"Do you even have to ask?" Bario said, surprised that Link seemed to be **against **killing more "bad guys."  
"Obviously," Link stated, "Why would we waste time killing these guys, especially if it's what Master Hand wants us to do?"

"Because they're bad!" Raichu said, "Why wouldn't we take care of them?"

"Because I don't think we should waste any more time. I think we should go to where Master Hand, Crazy Hand and all the rest are…I think we should go to the Smashing Realm," Link said.

"What?!" everyone shouted, with the exception of Mario and Kirby, who just looked surprised.

"Where's that?" Raichu asked.

"It's this place between dimensions where we battled the hands previously," Link answered, "And I'll bet that's where they are now."

"How are we supposed to get there?" Falco asked.

"Simple," Samus said, "Bario will make a portal."  
"What?" Bario said again, more surprised by Samus's approval of Link's idea than by her suggestion.

"You can do it can't you?" Link asked, warming to the idea.

"Well, yeah, but…I don't think we should places like this unattended. Who knows what damage the villains will cause if we leave!"  
"And who knows what they'll do if we stay!" Diddy said, seeing the other side of the argument, and trying to push the events that happened in the final battle with K. Rool to the back of his mind.

"I do not want to leave my home in the control of whatever monstrosity is terrorizing it," Meta said, rather coldly.

"Yeah!" Raichu said, "We cleaned up your worlds! It's only fair we keep doing it!"  
"It's not about fair!" Diddy said, "It's about the bigger picture, and there are a lot more people than just us involved in this!"  
"I do not want to leave!" Meta said.

"Well I think we should!" Link responded.

Everyone started talking and yelling at once, and it might have blown into a fist-fight, if a yell from Bario didn't shut them all up.

"Be quiet!"  
They stopped and stared at Bario. Before any of them could start arguing again Bario made a suggestion.

"How about we take a vote?"

"A vote?" Link said, surprised by the idea.

"Yes. This is a big decision, and I think everyone deserves to have a say in what we do…so should we go…or stay? Link?" Bario asked.

"I think we should go."  
"One for leaving…Meta Knight?"  
"Stay."  
"Leave," Diddy said.

"Stay!" Raichu said at the same time.

Mario indicated that he would like to stay.

"Leave," Samus said.

"I think we should…leave," Falco said, surprising several of the others, "I really do want to finish this."

Kirby indicated that he would like to go to the Smashing Realm, leaving the vote at five for leaving and three for staying.  
"Well…I would like to stay…but it looks like it's already been decided," Bario said in a defeated tone, "I'll try and make the portal."

Bario raised his hands and a purple light started to emanate from them. Link and Diddy's eyes widened as they made a connection with the light…and something else they had seen. Before either could say anything, a loud screeching sound shattered Bario's concentration.

The ball he was creating melted back into the ether and the Smashers turned around just in time for a huge metallic looking bird with rainbow-colored feathers swoop down…and grab Samus in its talons. Shrieking again it flew up and away towards the fortress at the top of the hill, with Samus yelling more in anger and frustration than anything else.

The Smashers stared in surprise and shock for several seconds before Meta Knight whispered "Dynablade," in a stunned voice. Without another word the group charged up the hill.

_**In the clutches of Dynablade…**_

"Let me go you stupid bird!" Samus yelled smacking one of her hands on the leg that was holding her…and immediately regretting it, as her unarmored hand struck the distinctly metallic leg of her captor.

She struggled for a bit after that, attempting to reach the Paralyzer on her belt but the way she was being held made that impossible. Resigned she decided to wait out the short journey.

And short it was, as within minutes Dynablade had carried her to the top of the fortress. Dynablade started to swoop down as the dark roof began to retract, revealing a single large chamber. Dynablade dropped Samus several feet above the ground, and she hit it rather roughly.  
"That does it, you're dead!" Samus said, pulling out her Paralyzer…but Dynablade was already flying out of reach, near the roof of the fortress. Samus watched it for a minute, squinting as the sun hit her eyes over the top of the fortress walls. She heard a light shuffling behind her, and started to turn…when something big hit her in the stomach hard enough to make things go dark…

_**On the hillside…**_

"Samus! NO!" Link said, firing an arrow uselessly at the retreating Dynablade. It didn't even come close.

"Link! Calm down! All we have to do is follow the bird!" Bario said, putting a hand on Link's arm.

Link was a second away from giving Bario a sharp rap in the face with his bow, but he remembered their conversation on the boat and restrained himself.

"Fine. What's your plan?" Link asked, hoping Bario had a more complete plan than just "Follow the bird."  
"Simple, we go up the hill, break in that fortress and kill Dynablade and rescue Samus…although I'm not sure she'll really need rescuing, she's pretty tough," Bario started to trail off when Diddy shouted.

"Hey guys! We've got company!"

Link and Bario turned towards Diddy and saw him staring behind the group. The others quickly turned as well…and saw a horde of foes charging at them.  
Well, more kind of waddling at them. A shout from Meta revealed the slow-moving stumbling Kirby sized creatures to be Waddle Dee's. They were very round and had stumps for legs and arms. Although they had no visible weapons, there were dozens of them so the Smashers opened fire.

The creatures died easily, and scores were falling to the Smashers weaponry…but that wasn't enough. Coming to the forefront of the group were creatures that were considerably more dangerous than Waddle Dee's.

The first indication that there was more to these enemies than clumsy balls with no mouths was when a Waddle shot a beam of energy forward far enough to hit Mario. The power of the attack was negligible, but surprising and a closer look revealed that the Waddle Dee was not in fact, a Waddle Dee.  
Mixed in with the Waddle Dee's were Waddle Doo's, similar looking creatures with one large black eye for a face and antennae. Several more beams shot towards the Smashers, but they were easily avoided.  
Meta Knight used his speed and sword skills to cut a wide swath through these familiar enemies, killing four in as many seconds.

The Smashers were making progress. Despite the huge horde of enemies, none of the Smashers were in any way seriously hurt, and they were killing tons of these feeble foes.

Bario was reasonably confident of their success and was starting to become quite cocky, until his head was almost taken off by a whirling metal disc.

It skimmed past his hair, trimming a few, before whirling back towards its owner, a small round creature with mitten-like hands that was the size of the Waddle Dee's. The blade was the headpiece of its yellow armor, and the thing looked significantly more vicious than the other enemies.

Before the Smashers could react to this new foe, several more started popping out of trapdoors in the ground, revealing how this many enemies managed to sneak up on the Smashers.

Many of the new enemies were different and dangerous. Several were swinging swords around wildly; others were flinging punches, one of which caught Falco pretty hard in the chest. He retaliated by throwing out a trio of kicks that put the being's punches to shame, and the creature fell to the ground and died by vanishing.

"Pretty weird huh?" Falco shouted out, avoiding a stab from a small sword wielding foe.

"What is?" Diddy asked.

"How all the enemies from different worlds die differently," Falco said, Falco Illusioning through some Waddle Dee's.

"What do you mean?" Raichu said, shocking three armored warriors into oblivion.

"Well, like how some just vanish, or explode into pink dust…it's just weird."  
"Now is not the time to be worrying about this," Link said angrily, penetrating a Waddle Doo through the eye.

"Curses!" Meta said, twirling to create a small orange tornado that destroyed several enemies. He stopped and looked back towards the fortress, "More enemies are coming!"  
The others stepped back from the continuing to emerge foes to see scores of pink ball creatures with gossamer wings emerging from the roof of the fortress, and dropping from their feet were parasol clutching Waddle Dee's and Waddle Doo's

"There's too many!" Raichu said, as the Smashers were being pushed back.

"He's right…let's get out of here before those reinforcements join them…Smashers, to the fortress!" Bario said, throwing back several magic balls to keep the enemies back.

The other Smashers laid down some last-minute attacks and then ran as more and more enemies appeared. Several of the pink creatures dive bombed the Smashers, but Mario blasted them out of the sky.

Diddy considered using his guitar…but the enemies were too low to the ground, it would probably miss most of them, and he wasn't even sure if it would work now, it might still need to recuperate from the battle against K. Rool. He turned his remaining popgun to the sky and shot several parasols from the hands of descending enemies causing them to plummet to their death.

Falco picked up on Diddy's strategy and joined in the firing, but an order from Bario made them stop.

"There's no time! Just run!"

Not bothering to question, the two holstered their weapons and ran full speed up the hill, jumping over enemies and dodging attacks…and that's when the cannons on the top of the fortress started firing.

"Agh!" Raichu said, dodging a ball.

As soon as the cannons started firing, the yellow lumps on the hill opened up their eyes and began firing white projectiles from openings on their tops.

A few of the Smashers fired some attacks at the cannon, which didn't seem to do any damage, but since the devices couldn't move, once they got far enough up the hill they were no longer capable of hitting the Smashers. The yellow lumps were easily destroyed, but there were quite a few of them.

The hill wasn't that steep, nor was it that high, so fortunately it wasn't very difficult to get up it …there was only one problem.

"The doors are closed!" Falco said, adding an expletive that had little to do with kittens.

"Just give me a second!" Bario said, reaching the door first. He put his right hand on it; having sheathed both swords during the run up the hill and a faint purple glow was oozing from it. "Hold them off!"  
"Gotcha!" Diddy said, glad that this combat was getting his mind off…recent events. He pulled out an orange and turned around, the other Smashers having reached the top and turning to aim their weapons…and they almost dropped them.

Over a hundred enemies of all kinds, some with swords, a few big monkeys with hammers, skull things with axes, tons of them were swarming up the hill.

"How did they all get here?" Diddy yelled, throwing down an orange.

"Dedede must have set up tunnels!" Meta called back, flinging down several energy balls.

The orange exploded, killing several of the enemies and pushing others back.  
"Dedede? Who's that?" Falco asked as fired laser shots.

"The local baddy, I'm guessing," Link answered, calmly firing bomb arrows.

Mario fired eight firebombs in quick succession, causing the enemies to be pushed back a little. The Smashers were holding them at bay, but only just, and more enemies kept appearing.

"We're good!" Bario said, as a pulse of energy flashed from his hand. The fortress door opened, and Bario quickly stepped back to avoid being whacked by the large double doors.

The others each got off one more attack before diving into the fortress. Bario fired a few magic balls at the encroaching horde and then jumped in himself, the door slamming shut behind him.

"That was close, huh?" Bario said cheerfully.

When no one responded he looked at the others and saw they were all staring at something in the middle of the chamber they were in. He followed their eyes…and was quite surprised.

"Well…that's not good."

_**The Prison…**_

"Luigi? Luigi?" Peach said, attempting to rouse her green companion.

"He's not going to wake up, honey," Zelda said, attempting to console her princess.

Luigi, Captain Falcon and Ness were all still unconscious, having been brought in by Mewtwo after being taken away rather abruptly several hours ago.  
"Well, it's been four hours…you'd think they'd have woken up by now," Peach said rather haughtily.

"Give it a break, Peachie," Fox said, still pretty bruised and battered from his battle with Ganondorf, "They'll wake up eventually…and then we'll find out what's going on."

He looked over at the three Pokémon, who had been dragged away similarly a little while after Luigi and the two that went with him. They were unconscious now too, and judging by the burn marks on all of them…something bad went down.

"And where are Marth, Roy, Popo and that sister of his?" Peach asked, looking at their empty cages.

Well, those four were currently on what appeared to be a large stone square, about forty feet by forty feet. They were given a similar command by the voice as Luigi, Ness and Falcon, and while Marth and Roy were reluctant to start fighting, Popo and Nana had no problem initiating combat.

The square they were on seemed to be floating in empty space, and it was slowly turning, so the fighters had to watch their footing. Additionally the square had large protrusions in various shapes and sizes, so they had to be careful not to get whacked as it turned.

"Stop this!" Marth commanded, his floppy blue hair billowing, kind of like his cape, but less impressive, as he narrowly evaded Popo's hammer.

"No! We want to get out of here!"  
"You don't know whether or not the voice was telling the truth! We should be working together, not fighting!" Roy said, slashing a small glacier like thing Nana flung at him into tiny ice chunks.

"What other choice do we have?" Popo demanded, throwing out a trio of powerful but slow hammer strikes, the last of which Marth managed to deflect slightly with the flat of his sword. Marth then followed that up with a strike to Popo's head…with the flat of the blade that knocked the squat parka wearing mountaineer back.

"We should work together!" Roy declared, jumping over a large section of raised flooring, "I'm sure we could figure something out!"

"Ha!" Nana said, "Working together with people in the same mountain as us? What could we possibly do?"  
"I'd rather have false promises that might deliver, than empty ones," Popo said shooting a frigid blast of ice at Marth.

The ice bit into Marth, his thin armor not providing him much protection…but the true pain stemmed from Popo's words. Truly, what could they offer the Ice Climbers? Nothing.

"Roy!" Marth called, after leaping away from the attack.

"What?" Roy said, flames leaping from his sword as he batted away Nana's hammer.

"Surrender…just surrender," Marth said resignedly, before sheathing his own sword and standing, hands open and empty in front of Popo.

"What are you doing?!" Roy demanded.

"I want to see if that voice was telling the truth. Popo, you win, and Nana, you will too if Roy stands down. Let's see if your promise was any less hollow than mine!" Marth called out at the sky as Roy lowered his weapon.

A deep laughing was only answer…and then the square shattered, leaving the four stranded in empty blackness…then they began to fall.

_**In the Penguin's Lair…**_

Greeting the Smashers was a most unwelcome sight. The inside of the fortress was bland, but brightly lit thanks to the sunlight streaming in through the mostly open ceiling. The brown stone floor was undecorated, and if it weren't for the many thick cylindrical pillars stationed around the walls, the massive room would have seemed empty, with the exception of the people in it.

And what people they were. The first one that Link noticed was Samus, still clad in her skin-tight "Zero" suit. She was unconscious and was lying in the middle of the floor, but there weren't any obvious wounds or bruises on her body.

The second "person," and that word is used loosely, was Dynablade. The massive multicolored metallic bird was standing in the back of the room, its strangely extendable neck was jerking all over the place, and its short beak was opening every once in a while to make a threatening noise.

The final figure, as Meta Knight said, was "King" Dedede, a fat large blue penguin, bigger than Samus or Bario, both height and width. He looked quite imposing, although that was mostly because of his size rather than his physical appearance. He had a massive wooden hammer that made Kirby's look small and he was dressed in strangely fine red robes.  
Oh, and Dedede was holding his hammer over Samus's head.

"You get away from her right now!" Link snarled, aiming an arrow at Dedede's head.

"Alright den!" Dedede said placatingly, his deep voice sounding vaguely like he had a cold, but the evil look in his eye as he slowly moved away from Samus left nothing to the imagination. This guy was bad news.

"Why'd you have that thing get Samus?" Bario demanded, gesturing towards Dynablade.

"Why? Well, you're all going to be dead soon, info can't hurt…hmph. Dat hand told me to make sure you stayed here. Said something about holding you up. Dynablade was looking for a fight, and well, I was looking forward to squashing dat dere Kirby."  
"But Dynablade is friend of Kirby's!" Meta said, startled by the ferocious bird glaring at them.

"Not since Dynablade is convinced that Kirby is the one that killed her babies," Dedede said, smirking at Kirby. The puffball's eyes narrowed as he pulled out his hammer.

"This talk is accomplishing NOTHING!" Link shouted, firing his arrow. Dedede easily batted it aside with his hammer.

"I was hoping for dat," Dedede said, "Leave Meta and Kirby to me…you get the rest!"  
Dynablade squawked her agreement before sweeping towards the Smashers. Meta and Kirby ducked under her and ran for Dedede who grinned as they approached.

The other six Smashers scattered as Dynablade charged through their midst. The bird stopped and landed heavily on the ground, her massive body creating a minor shockwave. Link was the first to respond with a sword strike to her chest. The sword made a metal clang and then bounced off. Dynablade then swatted him away with one powerful wing swipe.

Link clambered to his feet, pretty irritated, as Dynablade looked disdainfully at the Smashers.

"That's not going to work, we need some kind of plan," Link said.

"Falco, Diddy, you stay back and keep it distracted, everyone else, attack on my mark!" Bario commanded, having the "heavy hitters," so to speak leading the assault.

"Your mark? What's that?" Raichu asked.

His question was answered when Bario yelled something and charged for Dynablade

"I'm guessing that," Falco said, as he and Diddy pelted the bird with minor projectiles.

Bario's twin swords clanged off a wing, as did Link's single blade. Raichu let fly a small bolt of lightning, which judging by the shriek from Dynablade, caused the metallic bird some measure of pain.

She swept her wings out, knocking both Bario and Link to the floor and as Raichu jumped towards her, hoping to leap on and cause more damage, she shot her large head out, slamming him to ground.  
Her wings beating frantically she started to become airborne…when Mario jumped over her head and smashed her in the face with his hammer.

That did what none of the other attacks managed to do…seriously hurt her. She let out a strangled yelp and crumpled to the ground. The others started to regroup but she suddenly kicked out a taloned foot, catching Mario in the side and opening up a duo of painful slash marks.

Meanwhile Kirby and Meta ran on opposite sides towards King Dedede. Kirby swung his hammer and Meta slashed with his sword, but simple attacks like that were nothing. Dedede jumped back to avoid the short range sword swing, and blocked the hammer with his own. Grinning Dedede applied some force to Kirby's temporarily pinned hammer and sent the weaker cotton ball back several feet.

Meta dashed forward, hopping over the still unconscious Samus and unleashed a flurry of sword swipes before Dedede could press his attack. Dedede managed to block or avoid some of them, but a few cut through his guard, creating some minor wounds and ripping up his fancy robe.

Dedede growled at Meta Knight, and seeing Kirby running towards him as well he decided to try another attack. He leapt high in the air, just as Kirby and Meta swung again, both attacks missing, and coming very near to hitting each other.

They looked around, confused for a second until they heard a whooshing sound. Looking up they saw Dedede coming down and they both dived away from the impact zone.

Both Kirby and Meta managed to avoid getting squashed, but the shockwave sent both sprawling and with a gleeful laugh Dedede pulled his hammer back, parts of the head of the mallet opening up to reveal the mechanical inner workings. The hammer started to shake as Dedede, having pushed a switch on the side charged up a powerful blow…and he was aiming for Kirby.

Mario almost dropped his hammer as he reached down to clutch the cuts on his side. He started to back off, hoping to recover, but Dynablade swept her wing again, catching Mario in the side and tossing him roughly into one of the pillars.

Bario and Link stayed out of reach of her wings and talons having decided to try hitting her with projectiles. Diddy and Falco were aiming for her head, and now Bario and Link were shooting arrows and magic balls at her. Dynablade covered her head with her wings, but the four were firing from different angles and with different attacks, allowing several to slip by her guard.

The clincher was when Raichu managed to get his wits together long enough to shoot a bolt of lightning at Dynablade. Like before the attack looked like it seriously hurt her…but now Dynablade was mad.  
Opening her beak she spat out ten blue balls of energy. They hovered in front of her for a second before they started flying towards the Smashers, creating blue trails behind them, so they looked like little comets. Two energy balls flew towards each of the five Smashers still standing…

Dedede let out a grunt as he swung his hammer towards Kirby. Kirby saw it coming and tried to dodge, but he knew it would hit. There was a slight whooshing sound as it flew towards Kirby…and then it stopped.

"GREEEAGH!" Dedede said, as tiny sparks traveled up his body.

"What the?" Meta said, Dedede's body obscuring whatever hit him.

"Who dares?" Dedede demanded, turning around.

"I do," Samus said, kicking him in the face.

Dedede fell back, and before he could retaliate Samus kicked him again before whipping him with her Paralyzer. Dedede yelled and swung his hammer at Samus, but evaded it easily.

"You're not going to hit me again!" Samus yelled, just as Kirby slammed his hammer into Dedede's side, and Meta hit him in the stomach with several energy balls. They were about to continue their assault when Dedede dropped his hammer and rose his hands in surrender.

"You give up?" Meta asked suspiciously, sword raised.

"I'm no match for all three of you, even I can see dat," Dedede said dejectedly, "Just, don't kill me."

"We won't…but I at least would like some answers," Samus said, still angry about being knocked out.

"Anyting!" Dedede said, his strange accent becoming more pronounced as his fear grew.

"Why did you have that bird grab me?"

" De hand ting came to my fortress and told me dat Kirby and some of his friends were coming here. He wanted me to keep you here for a while, so I told Dynablade to grab one of you and bring you here. De hand was very insistent…he dought dat you guys would leave."

"Good answer. It leads to this second question," Meta said coldly, "How did you get Dynablade to assist you?"

"I grabbed her kids and hid dem somewheres. I figured I could use her help against Kirby."

"Great. You're a scumbag. Final question, and this one is _deadly_ important," Samus said, her emphasis of the word deadly causing Dedede to shudder, "Where did the hand go?"

Bario tried to dodge the energy balls, but while he managed to avoid one, the second caught him in the leg, knocking him to his knees. Diddy managed to avoid both coming at him, but Raichu got skimmed by both, burning parts of his fur.

Link blocked both with his shield and Falco deflected them back with his Reflector, although Dynablade didn't seem to notice. The bird screeched and started to take to the air. The Smashers tried to recover in time to fire when Dynablade's head snapped to the right, pointing right at Dedede.

She seemed to quiver for a second, her whole body shaking and then without even a sound she shot towards him like a missile.

She zoomed past Kirby and Samus and grabbed Dedede on the shoulders with her talons…right before he could answer Samus's question. Screeching in fury she dragged the heavy and sputtering Dedede out of the opening in the fortress, and out of sight.

"Damn!" Samus said.

"Well that was…surprisingly anticlimactic," Raichu said…before squinting and turning to Diddy, "Hey…haven't I said that before?"

"Well what do we do now?" Falco asked, as the Smashers started to group together.

"I think Dedede's been taken care of. We should go to the Smashing Realm," Link said.

"Are we sure this area is taken care of yet? What if there is something else we should do here?" Bario asked.

"I don't think it matters," Samus said, "We can come back…after we finish off those accursed hands."  
"Alright…fine," Bario said, starting to summon a portal.

"Hey wait a second," Falco said, a thought coming to him.

"What?" Bario asked, a purple ball growing in his hands.

"How do you know whe-" He was suddenly cut off as a massive force blasted through the fortress. The Smashers could literally feel an invisible energy wave pass them by…missing them by inches.

"What was that?" Diddy said.

No one answered, and at first it seemed like nothing happened…until the fortress literally crumbled to dust. It shattered. It was vaporized. Basically, it was **annihilated.** Before the Smashers could act, they saw a large dark figure flying up the hill…and then a pulse of power shot through them and all nine Smashers fell to the ground, unconscious.

Only one problem…the pulse that knocked them out…didn't come from the figure.


	40. Terrors of the Mind

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Forty: Terrors of the Mind**

Samus was running. She wasn't sure from what, or why…she only knew she had to. Her suit enhanced her speed and endurance, so she should be able to run very fast for a very long time, but for some reason she was exhausted.

Wait…her suit? That was with her ship, and that wasn't even in this dimension. How could she be…

This dimension? Where is that? This didn't look familiar.

Not ceasing in her running she looked around, and was not happy with what she saw. A long blank grayish black tunnel. It was very craggy, looking like it was formed by natural forces rather than by machine, and the footing was tricky. Several times Samus almost tripped over an awkwardly placed rock or hole.

The tunnel was very similar to others she's been in. It looked like the place where she fought Metroid Prime the first time. Actually it looked like several places, over which several battles took place. The tunnel look was pretty familiar to Samus, although the feeling coursing through her at this moment was entirely alien.

It was terror.

She'd felt fear before, even horror, usually when she was battling something really disgusting…but never pure terror. It was not a pleasant feeling. It was like someone had taken her, stripped her naked and shoved her into an ocean made of ice while needles jabbed into her bare flesh.

Course she didn't have a lot of time to think of how it felt because she was far too busy running.

Soon she reached the end of the tunnel, and found herself…on the outside of a space station?  
Samus looked behind her, but instead of seeing the opening of a tunnel she just saw faint pinpricks of light. Stars. She stopped running, the terror temporarily abating.

She recognized the station as one the Galactic Federation used often, usually as a military base. It was basically just a cluster of large gray buildings held together by long hollow cylinders that not only connected the buildings, but also allowed for travel between them.

She was on the "roof" of one of these buildings, the artificial gravity preventing her from flying off into space. Each of these buildings had relatively flat roofs, and breathable air was held in by the use of an orange force field. It was maintained in a twenty foot radius around the entire station.

She recalled that the roof was designed this way to train soldiers. In the depths of space, and with the armored hull of the station, they could fire their weapons around wildly without fear of hitting anything. They kept breathable air and maintained a comfortable environment so they could train without bulky suits, and the gravity could be turned off for weightless combat training.

She knew what this place was for…she just didn't know why she was here.

She looked around again, but whatever had filled her with such dread was nowhere in sight, and no matter how hard she tried, she was unable to remember **why** she was so afraid in the first place.

Suddenly she heard a noise behind her. Startled, she spun around, certain that nothing was there…nothing **could** be there, she just checked and…something was there.

Or rather, it was starting to be there. Materializing out of nothing was…her. A second Samus just kind of…faded _into _existence. As Samus stared in confusion at the second her, it started to shift and change. The armor became a dark blue, parts of it transformed and in moments the second Samus had become…Dark Samus.

"You!" Samus said in shock, raising her arm cannon, "But I killed you! I killed you like six times!"  
Dark Samus slowly walked towards Samus, her armored feet clanking loudly on the gray metal. She stopped several feet away and looked at Samus. If the armored warrior didn't know better…she would say Dark Samus was smiling.

"That you did…but then again, I am not truly Dark Samus," the being said, her voice similar to Samus's own, only slightly deeper and it had a strange echo effect.

"What? Than who are you?" Samus said, surprised to see the creature speak.

"A better question would be…**what** am I?"  
There was an awkward pause.

"You're going to make me ask you aren't you?"  
"Yes."  
"I just met you and already I think you're a jerk."

"I don't care."

"Fine. What are you?"  
"I am your inner self Samus, the subconscious, the "dark" part of you that you generally ignore. Usually I am merely a small voice in your head that gives you advice. Advice that you mostly choose not to heed."

"Well, if that's what you usually are…than why are you approaching me like this?" Samus asked, while she lowered her arm cannon.

"Because, I have something important to tell you and I can't risk it being ignored. You are in great danger."  
"When am I not?"  
"NO!" "Dark" Samus said, her vehemence startling Samus, "You don't understand! This is a danger far beyond anything you've ever faced before."

"What are you talking about?"  
"Something is coming. Something far more evil and powerful than the beings and foes you've battled against before."

"Wait, if you're me…or I'm you…argh! It doesn't matter! How come you know about this and I don't?"

"Because Samus, I am a part of you that is more in touch with your mind than the main "you" is, and something is trying to affect your mind."  
"This is really confusing."  
"I know."  
"Is this even possible?"  
"Samus, after everything you've seen and done are you really going to question the validity of your subconscious warning about a terrible evil?"  
"Touché."

"As I was saying, that tunnel you were in was part of a trap designed by this being, and I just managed to move your consciousness to another part of your mind. I'm hoping to buy enough time to warn you and wake you up before it finds you again."

"Alright," Samus said, "I get that…what I don't get is how there's two of me. Are you going to like try and take over me?"

Dark Samus sighed and shook her head.

"That's really not an issue. Samus, I'm not your inner darkness, I'm not evil, and I can not and will not "take over." This is just a conversation you're having with yourself, and you've chosen this representation to converse with. I am just telling you what you have subconsciously noticed or felt in a way that you will understand and react to."  
"Oh. Carry on."

"Actually, that was pretty much all I had. Watch out, evil thing, messing with your mind, etc."  
"Great, do you have any other advice?"  
"You mean, do YOU have any other advice."  
"You…I…whatever, answer the question!"  
"What do you want?"

"Something more helpful than 'Look out for the most evil thing you'll ever face in your lifetime,' would be nice. Jeez, could my subconscious be anymore cryptic or vague?"

"Well considering you only have a vague knowledge of the situation…"

Before Samus could respond…to herself, she heard shouting and a panel opened up in the center of the roof she was on.

"What's going on?" Samus asked.

"Looks like you're dreaming," Dark Samus responded.

"I don't want to be dreaming! Oh crap! I almost forgot, something was coming at us! Now is not the time to be dreaming!" Samus said, smacking her helmet, "Why can't I wake up?"  
"I don't know."  
Samus turned back to the new opening in the floor, the shouting getting louder. As she watched a dozen Galactic Federation Troops, with their guns ready come charging out of the entrance.

The troops were wearing their gray armor with its thick glass-like faceplate. The weapons they were holding were just the standard energy guns…at least they weren't using the Phazon powered stuff anymore.

They surrounded the entrance and as one aimed their weapons towards space. While Samus watched in confusion, a final person emerged from the station.

"What? That's impossible!" Samus said, completely shocked.

It was Link.

He had his sword out, but his shield rested on his back. He was yelling at the soldiers, giving them orders and generally doing that whole inspirational speech military guys often do to their men, but Samus didn't hear a word of what he was saying, so shocked was she by him _being_ there.

"I don't understand…how?"  
"Dream, Samus," Dark Samus said.

"Oh yeah…but…why am I dreaming this? What does it mean?"

"How should I know? It probably doesn't mean anything. Most of the time dreams are just random things fluttering through your mind; this is probably just a few things that have been on your mind lately."

Suddenly there was a change in the mood. Link stopped talking, and turned his head towards the sky. The Federation troops aimed their weapons at one point, the point where Link was staring with an angry look. He slowly pulled off his shield and raised his sword.

Before Samus could say anything she saw what they were looking at…and it was not pleasant.  
A massive field of dark purple ooze was floating down towards the force field. Link told the troops to stand firm, while Samus stared in disgust.

"What is that?"  
"Honestly…I don't know. Have we ever seen anything like that?" Dark Samus asked.

"Definitely not. I couldn't even imagine that thing!"  
"Than that means…the thing found you again," Dark Samus said.  
"What do you…ah!" Samus said, stopping as the bone-chilling terror returned.

The purple ooze slowly spread around the top of the force field and for a second it seemed like the field would be enough to stop it…but that would be far too simple. With scarcely any effort at all the ooze simple…bled through the field.  
As soon as it was through the soldiers started firing at it, their energy weapons discharging vast quantities of energy at the evil goo…but they might as well have been shooting kittens for all the good it did.

The goo's counter-attack however, was far more effective.  
A dozen long, thin and very pointy tentacles erupted from it as continued its slow descent and shot through the faceplates of the soldiers, killing them instantly. With a burst of purple fire their bodies were vaporized, and both Samus and Link were horrified.

The goo then sent all dozen of the tentacles flying at Link, but between his sword and shield he managed to block or deflect all of them.  
The tentacles formed back into the ooze as it landed on the ground, its form changing even as they watched.

The ooze faded in color, changing from a purple that was almost black to a considerably lighter purple. The goo than started to coalesce into a humanoid form, bigger than Link, but not by much. The goo than became an aura surrounding the armored figure, making it appear like it was wreathed in violet flame.

The figure was decidedly masculine, and clearly armored, although its features were blanked out by the aura.

Link charged for it, sword raised and brought it down in a mighty arc that looked like it would cleave the evil figure in two…until it raised an arm insanely quickly and deflected the blow.

Judging by the clang, the armor on the being extended to its arm, but Link was undeterred. Thrusting his shield forward he slammed it in the chest of the being, pushing it back and holding its arms in place. Link than jabbed his sword point-first towards the creatures face…and he missed.

Well, rather, he didn't miss so much as he just failed to hit his target. Because the armored purple warrior had vanished.

Before Link could try and discover it again, the being materialized behind him and in one swift movement he shoved a hand **into **Link's back.  
Link screamed and tried to turn around, but the being sent a pulse of energy into Link so powerful that he dropped his sword and shield. A second pulse sent Link to his knees.

"NOOOOO!" Samus said, sick of watching, not caring if it was a dream or not. She fired four missiles in rapid succession. They flew towards the unsuspecting figure, but before they hit he raised a hand and deflected them harmless into the force field.

"Damn! What's he doing?" Samus demanded.

"Clearly he's killing Link. I don't think your friend has much time." Dark Samus responded.

"Isn't there anything I can do?"  
"Don't forget Samus, this is a dream. This isn't actually happening. That's not really Link. That _thing _is just messing with you. At best, you can think of this as a test of what you would do in a similar situation."

"I don't care! What can I do?"  
"You can destroy that," Dark Samus said, pointing to a panel on a stand near the northwest corner of the building they were on.

Samus followed her subconscious's avatar's finger and stared for a second, not comprehending. When she did comprehend however, she recoiled in shock and disgust.

"No! Not that! Do you know what it'll do?"  
"Well, considering that you know, and I am you, then yes, I do know what it will do."  
"But it will…it will…" Samus said, trailing off.

"Cut the force field, allowing the cold vacuum of space to reach in here. It probably won't kill that thing, but it will at least spare Link whatever horrible fate it has planned for him."  
"But Link would die!"  
"His other alternative appears far worse."

"But this isn't real! I'm just dreaming! Come on! Come on! Wake up!" Samus said.

"You may just be dreaming, but if you can't make a hard decision now, here, than how can you expect yourself to make one when it does matter?"

Samus stared at Link as he continued to scream, his body becoming enveloped by purple flame.

"Samus?"

"Fine." Samus said, pulling off her helmet and letting it drop to the ground.

"What are you doing?" Dark Samus demanded.

"Making a hard decision," Samus said, firing her arm cannon.

There was an explosion, and white light shone, so white that Samus shut her eyes. Nothing happened for a while…and then, Samus opened her eyes again.

Samus found herself, in her Zero-Suit, floating in emptiness.

"What's going on?" Samus said.

The figure that Link had battled appeared before her, his features still impossible to make out.

"Interesting choice Samus," he said, his voice sounding somehow like everyone she knew, and no one she knew, "You will definitely be one to watch."

"Who are you?" Samus demanded, "What do you want?"  
"What do I want?" The being said, "That's complicated. You're not ready to know. As for who I am…that's simple."  
Samus felt shivers creep down her spine, and suddenly realized she didn't want to hear the answer.

"I am Kidar."

_**In the ruins of Dedede's Fortress…**_

Samus shot up, a scream bursting through her mouth…a scream echoed by two other people. Looking around she saw both Kirby and Bario looking around just as wildly as she was.

"What…was that?" Samus managed to gasp out.

"I have…no idea," Bario said, clearly as shaken as she was from a similar experience.

Kirby just shuddered.

"That nightmare…and wait…what happened?" Samus said, looking at the ruins of the fortress around her.

"Something attacked us," Bario muttered, a sheen of sweat covering his face.

The three stood up, and a quick look around revealed the other members of their party still unconscious and strewn around the fortress. As they watched, several of them groaned and started to move, although judging by the fact that none of them were screaming, they clearly had not gone through the same experience Kirby, Samus and Bario had.

A strange whooshing sound echoed over their heads, and the standing Smashers looked up. A strange ball was flying over their heads. It was a faint blue-purple color; actually it looked vaguely like the sky when the sun goes down. It even had large hollow five-pointed stars emblazoned on it.  
"What the heck is that thing?" Samus asked.

Bario looked at Kirby, who was staring at it with a look of surprise.

"That's Nightmare…right Kirby?"  
Kirby nodded at Bario and pulled out his Cutter.

"Nightmare…why am I thinking of a guy in armor?" Samus asked, a look of confusion on her face.

"Whoa!" Falco yelled, staggering to his feet, "Do we have another battle on our hands?"

"Looks like it," Raichu said, crackling with electricity.

The other Smashers, all now standing got into battle-ready positions as the sky darkened considerably. Nightmare swooped down lower, and then made a second, lower pass.

"All this fighting is starting to wear on me," Diddy said, pulling out his popgun.

"This is nothing," Link said.

"Guys…cut the chatter, because here it comes!" Bario said, diving to the side to avoid Nightmare's attack.

The attack came in the form of stars, identical in appearance to one's on Nightmare's body. They were white, and the internal part of the star was transparent, making them appear to be merely outlines. The stars stabbed into the ground where Bario was standing, and several others barely missed the other dodging Smashers. After hitting the ground, or a chunk of rubble the stars vanished.

The ball floated past, and that was when the Smashers counter-attacked. Every single projectile they had flew towards the thing, a few missing because of the Smashers still being unsteady from their strange unconsciousness, but most of the attacks hit. After all, Nightmare was a ball about six feet in diameter…it's not like it was a small target.

Since the shockwaves from the cutter wouldn't reach the ball, Kirby threw the blade like a boomerang. Link noticed it was similar to an attack some of Dedede's minions had used.

Nightmare shuddered violently as the attacks poured into it, and then flew even faster around the Smashers, firing stars and large crescent-shaped energy waves at the Smashers at a rapid pace.

This forced them to spend most of their time dodging, rather than attacking, although a few managed to get an attack or two off.

Meta Knight immediately stopped firing energy balls and snuck around portions of the ruined fortress, trying to avoid Nightmare's attention. When Raichu blasted Nightmare with a particularly powerful bolt of lightning, Meta Knight chose that moment to strike.

With an impressive burst of speed he flew straight towards Nightmare. It noticed him before he reached it and shot off some stars, but Meta evaded them, soon getting close enough to slash Nightmare straight down the middle.

The attack left a deep cut on the ball, but Meta spent too much time savoring his small victory and was blasted back to the ground by a crescent blast.

The Smashers attempted to resume the attack, but a burst of blinding light forced them to stop…as Nightmare began to change.

The ball erupted outwards. It twisted and turned, lengthened and…yeah, it pretty much did a bunch of stuff. There were noises, and all kinds of pretty lights. But since it was not a particularly impressive transformation, let's just skip all that.

When the lights faded the Smashers turned to Nightmare…and saw something completely different.

The ball had transformed into something that looked vaguely humanoid. It had a large gray face with a prominent cleft chin. It, or rather _he_ was clad in a purple cloak that tapered down in a cylindrical fashion that looked vaguely like a tornado. His eyes were pure white and seemed to be connected.  
He had on shoulder pads and a necklace with a red jewel of some type. Rounding out this strange looking creature were a pair of long curling horns on its head. Oh and it was fifteen feet tall and floating.

Kirby threw his Cutter at Nightmare, but the blade merely bounced off its cloak. Nightmare let out a deep throaty laugh, raised a large hand out from under its cloak and extended one long, thin finger towards Kirby.

Immediately several stars flew from the finger towards Kirby. He rolled, but got skimmed by some.

Not wasting any time, the Smashers opened fire on the new Nightmare, and while the attacks didn't seem to be doing much in the way of damage they clearly were hurting the guy enough for him to start flying rapidly around.

He fired off some more stars, forcing the group to dive for cover, and after half a minute, he tried something new.

His cloak billowed upwards revealing that beneath the tornado shaped cloak was a…tornado. Yeah, like an actual tornado. Freaking weird.

Laughing maniacally he flew over their heads, pieces of rubble being flung about by the wind as he continued firing stars from both hands. He seemed pretty confident in his victory…until the Smashers blasted him in the…tornado.

Well, to be honest, it was really the bomb arrow, and a well tossed orange grenade that caused the most damage, but everything else did a good job of causing extreme **pain** to Nightmare…and it turned out that tornado thing was his weak spot. Cool.

Nightmare cried out, and glared at all of them…but clearly the attacks were too much for him, and he exploded into the pink dust, healing…or at least rejuvenating the Smashers.  
They were silent for a moment until Link turned to Kirby.

"Was that it? That guy was pretty easy."  
Kirby shrugged, apparently pretty surprised himself.

"Well, we all have gotten a lot stronger, I don't think there's really much of anything that could stand against us now," Bario said.

"Hmph," Samus said, "Well before we continue doing whatever it is we're doing I want to talk about the nightmares."

"We just killed him," Falco said.

"Not Nightmare! Nightmares!" Samus said angrily.

"What?" Link said, his voice dropping a few degrees of warmth.

"Did you say nightmares?" Diddy said, thinking back to just a little while ago.

"Why?" Bario said.

"Because I had one," Link said, shuddering at the memory.

"Me too," Diddy answered.

"Looks like something seriously messed up is going on here," Falco said.

"We should probably…what?" Bario started to say, before the area around them trembled. Yes, the actual air, ground, rubble, visibly trembled.

"What was that?" Raichu asked.

Before anyone could answer, the entire area vanished, being replaced by something completely different…and in the distance, something laughed.


	41. The Ends Justify the Means

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Forty-One: The Ends Justify the Means**

"Get in there and shut up," Ganondorf growled, throwing Marth into a cage. Roy and the Ice Climbers were already in their respective holding cells.

Marth merely groaned.

"Oh my! What happened to them?" Peach asked, small cuts and other evidence of battle visible on the four combatants.

"Nothing you need to worry about." Ganondorf growled.

"Ganondorf! I demand you let us go!" Zelda said, firing a blast of useless fire at her bars.

"Come on Princess, you know that won't work," Ganondorf answered with an evil grin.

He spun around, his cape billowing behind him and stomped out of the prison.

"GANONDORF!" Zelda yelled as the metal door clanged shut.

"Sounds like the prisoners are getting restless," Mewtwo said as Ganondorf continued stomping towards the center of the chamber.

"I don't know if we can really keep holding them here, I'm not used to imprisoning more than just the one princess," Bowser said.

"I am certain the cages will hold," Mewtwo said.

"Actually, I'm rather hoping they don't," Ganondorf said with a smirk.

"What? Are you saying you want those guys free? It took forever to catch them all!" Bowser said.

"I don't want them free now, but perhaps if those cages break we'll be able to turn them on M.C.," Ganondorf said.

"I wouldn't count on it," Mewtwo said, "They're already reasonably weak from the combat they have endured against each other…at best they'd be a minor annoyance to him, at worst they'd try to attack us."  
"So you're saying my plan is stupid?" Ganondorf asked angrily.

"No. I'm just informing you that it is not as good as your previous plan. However I would recommend not wasting energy reinforcing the cages…we'll probably need it all."  
"Hmph," Ganondorf grumbled.

"Well, on a different note, I've looked into the K. Rool situation," Bowser said, his words gathering the interest of the other two, "I got suspicious after he didn't report back."  
"That's right…he said he was going to take care of the nine," Ganondorf said.

"Right, and after that he was supposed to contact one of us. Since you and Mewtwo were busy, I was stuck waiting for the idiot's call...and it never came."  
"Do you think he's decided to turn on us?" Ganondorf asked, his expression darkening.

"More likely he's dead." Mewtwo stated calmly.

"What?" Both Bowser and Ganondorf said.

"Don't be so surprised. Those nine are tough, and they've already cut a swath through both your armies, as well as our reinforcements on Zebes. It's hardly surprising that they've beaten K. Rool…he was hardly up to any our levels."  
"But still…he was tough, and his army was big. If they killed him, then they're stronger than we thought." Ganondorf said.

"I know Mario and Link are good, and if their skills in the prior tournament hold true, than Samus, Kirby and Falco are all decent warriors," Mewtwo said, "But what of the others?"  
"Why are you asking us? Didn't you fight them?" Bowser asked.

"I did, and while Raichu and the monkey is of no concern, I wish to know more about the masked knight, and the violet haired swordsman."

"Well, both are…adequate. The knight is nothing special, and the purple haired man has some fancy tricks, but his fighting skills are not very impressive," Ganondorf said arrogantly, "But honestly, you know about as much as we do."

"Interesting. Has M.C. told us when he wants us to fight them again?"

"No…do you know why we are having them fight?" Ganondorf asked.  
"I'm not sure…but I'm guessing it is to break them," Mewtwo said.

"Do what?" Bowser said, as a small chime sounded. The noise was overridden by Ganondorf's next words, and it went unheard.

"Break them? Is he sure that can be done? These **are **the greatest heroes of their worlds."

"Well, in case you hadn't been paying attention," Mewtwo said, his tone an inch away from scorn, "there has already been some success with four of the captured Smashers."

"We've succeeded in breaking people? When did that happen? I like breaking things" Bowser asked in confusion, his loud voice obscuring a second, louder chime.

"But in case _you_ haven't noticed, the ones that have turned on their companions are the weaker ones. Hardly impressive, and I wouldn't classify them in the same league of strength as the ape, or the fox," Ganondorf said, his sharp tone clearly in response to Mewtwo's subtle rebuke.

"Physical or mental strength?" Mewtwo asked, "Or did you mean perhaps their heroic status in comparison to their peers?"

"Don't mock me!" Ganondorf said, as a third, loud chime sounded, "And Bowser check that thing," Ganondorf commanded, pointing to a keypad with a small screen by the large screen, where the chimes were coming from.

"Looks like I don't get to break anything," Bowser grumbled, stomping towards the machinery.  
"What's that?" Ganondorf asked.

"Some kind of messaging machine. Apparently M.C. has decided us so beneath his notice he doesn't want to waste time talking to us in person," Mewtwo said, a rare touch of anger in his normally emotionless voice.

"He'll get what's coming to him," Ganondorf said, "What does it say?"

Bowser's large claws made using machinery, especially ones that involve pushing buttons, like this one did, awkward to say the least. He was forced to carefully and slowly touch the buttons with the tip of his claws.

"Well, it confirms what we thought. They killed K. Rool," Bowser read, "And then it says that Master Hand sent them to…Pop Star?"

"What? Why not to Corneria?" Ganondorf asked, "Andross has been wanting a challenge ever since M.C. got the Queen to work with him."  
"According to this, M.C. planned for Pop Star to be a stalling point, and they're going to be on Corneria soon. After that, they're coming after us," Bowser said.

"What? M.C. plans for Andross to lose?" Mewtwo asked.

"He doesn't say, it just states that they'll be coming after us shortly."

"It just serves to verify what we thought…he's using them to get rid of all those who might threaten him," Ganondorf growled, his fists clenching, "That…that…GRAGH!"

Ganondorf shot off a ball of dark magic at the wall. The ball exploded, leaving a sizable dent.

Bowser, his attention on the screen in front of him jumped, not having realized Ganondorf was destroying chunks of the room.

"Calm down Ganondorf," Mewtwo said.

"Yeah, save it for Link," Bowser said.

"Fine," Ganondorf ground out, his teeth clenched, "Is there anything else I need to know?"  
"Just be patient. Our time will come," Mewtwo said.

_**Popstar-ish…**_

The sky was a dark purplish black, the ground a ruined brown. No trace of the charming green field, nor the ruins of Dedede's castle were in view…just a blank and empty wasteland. Thick clouds blotted out the sun, and let an eerie gloom emanate through everything.

"Where are we?" Samus asked, as the other Smashers looked around their new surroundings.

While Kirby and Meta racked their brains to see if they could remember this place, the laugh continued echoing, becoming louder…but its source was still not visible.

Something stirred in the distance. At first it appeared to be nothing more than wind, and the light whooshing sound coming from it seemed to support that theory…but as more of the Smashers turned towards the only moving thing in sight, it became clear that it was far more than merely "wind".

Whatever it was it had the appearance of a tornado. The swirling winds were a dark blue, and in the short time it took for it to reach the Smashers, it became clear that it was quite small, perhaps a few feet taller than Samus.

The Smashers watched it carefully as it approached, their weapons raised, ready for anything…except for what was revealed when the tornado dissipated.

Meta Knight.

Meta Knight was staring right at them…which was clearly impossible, because Meta Knight was also standing next to them, staring at himself.

"Who are you?" Diddy asked, confused.

"Isn't it obvious? I am Meta Knight!" The being declared, its voice identical to Meta's.

"That's impossible!" Raichu said.

"We're not going to fall for that!" Falco said.

"Are you sure?" the "new" Meta asked.

"Definitely, we know Meta, and he's not you!" Bario said.

"Agreed…although you do seem like I should know you," Meta said, his voice darkening, perhaps in anger over being mimicked like this.

"I didn't think it would work again," the being said, its voice deepening slightly.  
As the Smashers watched, its silvery mask and blue skin darkened to a gray tone. With a mighty flourish it pulled out its orange blade and faced the Smashers.

"I am Dark Meta Knight," he stated, laughing quite evilly.

"Hmph," Kirby said, his hammer poised to strike.

Dark Meta noticed that, and he seemed to grin.

"Ah, you remember me. I assure you Kirby, I won't be as easily beaten as before."

"Kirby…you've beaten this guy alone?" Link asked, keeping his gaze locked on the new foe.

Kirby nodded, his arms quivering in anticipation.

"Than what hope do you have of beating all of us?" Link asked, a touch of confusion in his voice.

"What makes you so sure I am alone?" Dark Meta asked mockingly.

On those words another laugh echoed, although this one was high-pitched and tinged with madness. In an instant a second creature appeared, with no fanfare or special tricks…he just seemed to pop out of the air.

"What the…what is that?" Samus asked, taken aback by this new creature's startling appearance.

It was definitely far stranger than Dark Meta. It wore a jester hat, which was split in half, one side crimson, the other cobalt. It had large eyes that could only be described as "googly." It had tiny little feet with red shoes, connected to its gray head. The thing had no body to speak of. Its arms were wing-shaped, yellow and thin. They were bat-like, but instead of a thin membrane there were swirling hexagons of color between the wings. It was big, but not huge. Its wing span was around eight feet in length, and its actual body wasn't much bigger than Kirby.

"This is Marx," Dark Meta said with a chuckle.

Kirby tensed and gripped his hammer tighter.

Bario stared at both enemies, and was about to issue orders, when Meta Knight stepped forward and spoke.

"Allow me to take on this imposter…alone. The rest of you should be able to take on that creature."  
"What? Are sure you can beat it?" Diddy asked, surprised by Meta's determination.

"What duplicate can stand against the original?" Meta asked in answer.

"I like the sound of that," Dark Meta said, a grin evident beneath his mask.

Kirby seemed to frown, but he nodded in agreement with Meta's plan.

"Marx…take them out," Dark Meta said, as he suddenly wrapped his cape around himself and vanished.

Meta repeated the action and vanished as well. Before the others could react in any way, Marx folded his wings…and dived at them.

Dark Meta appeared a good distance away from where Marx was attacking the Smashers. He started to smirk, pleased with his cleverness, when Meta suddenly appeared in front of him, sword stabbing forward.

Dark Meta barely managed to catch the attack with his own blade, and the force still pushed him back. Before he could retaliate Meta pulled his sword back and shot a fast swipe towards Dark Meta. Dark Meta moved his sword to block, but to late he realized the attack was a feint as Meta suddenly reversed the direction of the attack and landed a solid slice on Dark Meta's mask…where the sword made a sharp clanging noise and bounced back.

"Psh," Dark Meta scoffed, "Is that the best you got?"  
"Not even close," Meta responded, before spinning drill-like straight into Dark Meta.

The Smashers jumped back and shot off their weapons towards Marx, but he pulled out of the dive early and flew over their heads, dropping off numerous green balls with small thorns sticking out of them around the Smashers. The balls burrowed into the ground…and almost immediately shot up in massive pillars formed out of the green balls.

Several of the Smashers were almost skewered, but they managed to dodge the attack, although Mario and Diddy both suffered minor cuts from close calls.

Marx than seemed to split in half, with both parts of his body going in a different direction.

"What the?" Raichu said, startled by the unorthodox attack.

The parts of Marx centered near the ground…and then seemed to fly towards each other, with Falco in between the two. He jumped up at the last second, and as the parts combined to restore Marx Falco landed a powerful kick to the top of Marx's head.

Marx shook off the attack and flew upwards, knocking Falco to the ground, where he stood up quickly, brushing off his tumble.

Dark Meta had no time to dodge the attack as Meta was far too close. Meta's drilling sword slammed into Dark Meta multiple times. Most of the strikes hit harmlessly on the mask, but a few slipped past and opened up several small wounds on his foe. Meta finished off the brutal barrage with a powerful strike that sent Dark Meta into the air.

Meta had no time to enjoy his minor victory as Dark Meta performed the exact same move on Meta, drilling into him just as painfully. When Meta was sent back he glared at his duplicate. Dark Meta glared back, both bleeding slightly from their wounds.

Meta surrounded himself in an orange wind, creating a miniature tornado and flew towards Dark Meta, who countered by surrounding himself in a gray tornado and flew right back into Meta.

The two attacks canceled out and the two opponents found themselves with their blades locked, sparks springing off from the blades as they grinded against each other.

Marx flew rapidly several feet above the Smashers, his relatively small size and quick speed making it difficult for them to land a solid blow.

When Marx was over Diddy he opened his mouth and dropped what appeared to be a black metal ball. Diddy rolled out of the way, but when the ball hit the ground it exploded into a shockwave that knocked Diddy off his feet.

Marx took advantage of this opportunity to dive at Diddy, but Mario managed to jump at Marx and slam him hard enough with his hammer to force him to break off the attack. Diddy uttered a feeble thanks, to which Mario responded with just a nod.

Marx seemed unperturbed by the powerful blow Mario gave him, and merely started flying around again. Samus flung her whip at Marx when he flew near her, but the attack just seemed to harmlessly skim past his wings.

Marx didn't look as if he was anywhere close to out of tricks. Spreading his wings out farther than normal, four sharp crescent blades erupted from his body and flew at several of the Smashers.  
Link managed to block one with his shield, a feat Bario repeated with his swords. Falco managed to deflect a third back at Marx with his Reflector, but he appeared to barely notice the attack. Samus was forced to barely dodge the fourth with a quick roll, the blade left quivering in the ground behind her. Marx was not making this easy.

Meta and Dark Meta both jumped back at the same time. Meta wrapped his cape around himself and teleported right behind Dark Meta, his sword slashing sideways….and missing as Dark Meta was doing the exact same thing.

Meta rolled out of the way, the tip of Dark Meta's sword catching him on the foot, opening up a small cut. Meta Knight turned back towards his foe and swung his sword rapidly, shooting out several balls of energy.

Dark Meta flapped his wings, taking to the air where he managed to stay above the attack. Meta growled and fired several balls at Dark Meta in the air…where they were met and countered by Dark Meta's own energy balls.

Meta than stabbed his sword forward, firing a large, sword-shaped projectile that flew towards Dark Meta. Dark Meta dodged it and fired his own version of the attack, forcing Meta to take to the air.

Both opponents flew several feet over the ground, staring at each other. A few times they'd fire one of their two projectile attacks, but neither managed to land a solid blow. Getting tired of the impasse both were at they flew towards each other, swords pulled back to strike.

The time Marx needed to unleash his blades allowed several of the Smashers to land a few good hits on him, and Marx was beginning to weaken. Diddy and Falco's peanuts and laser were hitting very often, and while they were weak, the damage was building up. Realizing that his current strategy was ineffective, Marx decided to switch things up.

He started to fly even faster, becoming a harder target, and as he flew over his eight combatants he dropped several of the black balls. They shot out their shockwaves, knocking everyone down with the exception of Kirby and Samus, both of whom managed to leap over the attack.

But Marx wasn't done yet. He turned back around and before the prone Smashers could stand, he dropped several of the thorny seed bomb things, which planted themselves into the ground near each of the Smashers.

They soon erupted into their thorny spear towers. Kirby and Samus managed to avoid them completely, but everyone else, thanks to the quickness of the attacks suffered at the very least some cuts…and Link and Bario were both bleeding profusely, Link from a deep gash along his right arm, and Bario from a similar wound along his chest. Neither were done fighting yet.

While Marx enjoyed his handiwork, Link fired off a bomb arrow surprisingly quick, the attack slamming into Marx's face and exploding hard enough to knock him off balance.

He managed to stay in the air, but all that did for him was make him an easy target for several firebombs, lightning bolts and magic balls from Mario, Raichu and Bario. The attacks created a pretty big smoke cloud, so the Smashers held back on their attacks to see the result.

When the smoke cleared…Marx was gone.

Meta Knight unleashed a blinding fury of three insanely fast sword strikes, one aimed at Dark Meta's middle, a second slashing from high in the left, and the last a brutal stab forwards…and Dark Meta managed to block or avoid all of them.

The first two strikes were barely deflected by carefully placed sword swings and the last was dodged by Dark Meta suddenly dropping in altitude.

Dark Meta than attempted to strike at Meta's underbelly, but the masked Knight dropped as well and parried the blow.

The two went back and forth like that for quite a while, with neither landing a truly solid blow, although both were bleeding from many wounds. They dived and rose, slashing and spinning but both were essentially equally matched.  
They realized at the same time that this was getting them nowhere, so they both dropped to the ground and prepared for one final strike.

The Smashers frantically looked around, hoping to spot Marth…when he suddenly popped out of the air behind Kirby. Before any of the others could react he stretched out his wings, making a slight creaking sound and several dozen fast, pointy arrows came shooting out of him…straight towards Kirby.

Kirby was skewered several times, the points of the arrows easily penetrating his soft body and showering the other Smashers with his blood. The arrows tore his vulnerable insides apart. Kirby tried to let out a piercing cry of agony, but his lungs were shredded before he could even breathe. Kirby died a slow painful death while Marx grinned cheerfully.

Oh wait…that didn't happen.

When Marx opened his wings, Kirby heard the sound, and reacted to it by turning to stone. Most of the arrows missed him entirely, and those that didn't bounced harmlessly off of his stone body.

The Smashers immediately fired at Marx but he was already teleporting away. He appeared again, in front of Diddy and rammed him, knocking him to the ground, but vanishing before retaliation could take place.

That continued for a while, with Marx continuously teleporting and unleashing an attack. None of the Smashers were seriously injured, but the wounds were building up and they were so far having no luck actually doing some serious damage to Marx. Link was the first to think of a solution.

"Bario!"  
"What?" Bario asked while leaping over another one of Marx's shockwaves.

"Can't you stop teleportation?"  
"What…oh!"  
Raising his hand Bario reached towards Marx. Marx didn't even notice, so focused he was on killing the Smashers, one at a time. Bario released a pulse of energy and…Marx was stopped in his tracks.  
It was obvious the attack worked because Marx was suddenly not zapping around all over the place. Confused he didn't even attempt to do anything…which gave the Smashers plenty of time to slam him hard with their attacks.

Marx didn't let them do that for long though, because after taking a few hits he shot straight up, flying high into the air…and then he came flying straight back down.

Meta thought about saying something. Something heroic and just, something about how good would triumph evil; the honorable would beat the vile. Normally he would…but he didn't. He felt a strange urge to just end this fight, to finish it. He felt a…_pushing_ in his mind, a pushing towards…what? He thought about fighting it, but just as soon as that thought came into his mind it was immediately squashed. Soon all that was in his head…was the desire to destroy this Dark imposter.

With a cry of rage Meta Knight raised his sword high and then slammed it point-first into the ground, while a mere ten feet away Dark Meta Knight copied the action.

As soon as Meta's sword hit the ground a tornado started to form around it. Rapidly growing, its powerful gray winds soon encircled not only the blade, but the sword master as well. Meta stood still as mighty winds buffeted him, and when the tornado was over twenty feet high he yanked his sword out of the ground and pointed it at Dark Meta. The tornado shot towards him immediately…and was immediately vaporized.

Dark Meta's "tornado", rather than being a large cylinder of wind, was a large cylinder of multi-colored wind-based energy. It slammed into Meta's tornado and barely slowing down it continued right into Meta.  
He was brutally knocked around by the cruel winds, the energy carrying him up to the top while bashing him around itself repeatedly…and then suddenly it died, leaving Meta to crash hard into the ground, where he lay, barely able to move.

Dark Meta slowly started walking to his beaten foe. "Looks like this time…the imposter was the better knight."

Marx hit the ground, his face facing the majority of the Smashers. None were behind him. Samus aimed her weapon, but didn't fire.

"What's he-?"  
Before her question could be finished Marx shot out a massive white beam of energy from his mouth that had such great recoil effect that it sent him flying back quite a ways.

The energy beam was about two-thirds the size of Samus's Zero Laser, but a good deal faster. None of the Smashers, not even Kirby, who was half-expecting it, were able to avoid it. Only Diddy and Falco, the two not directly in the beam's path managed to escape unscathed.

"Raichu!" Diddy cried out.

Before the energy beam even finished dissipating, a bomb arrow, a Cutter blade, a firebomb, a magic ball and a yellow shot from Samus's Paralyzer all flew out of the powerful blast towards the still attempting to recover Marx.  
All of the attacks hit, and with a cry of pain he finally seemed to notice the damage. He started to fly up but a massive bolt of lightning came shooting out of Raichu and straight into Marx, sending him back down to the ground twitching in the electricity's power.

The Smashers were revealed after the glare from the beam vanished, all considerably worse for the wear. Their clothes were torn and several of them were bruised considerably. But all six of them had the same look of determination. Kirby started to walk towards the seemingly beaten Marx, but something caught his eye, and with barely a pause to scoop up his Cutter blade he ran off.

"Where are you going?" Link demanded.  
"Let him go," Bario said his tone seemingly compassionate…but there was a hint of command there that Link did not miss.

Raichu was still quivering from the massive output of energy he had let loose. He took a shaky step towards Marx, but then his legs gave out and fell to the ground.

He didn't stay there long though. In an instant Diddy was at his side.

"Don't Raichu, it's going to be okay. We got him."  
"Really? That's good."

As if in open defiance of Diddy's words, Marx shot up in the sky, somehow still able to move blindingly fast despite the amount of damage he had taken. The standing Smashers took aim but he shot off his hailstorm of arrows at them. At that distance they were easily dodged, but they bought Marx the time he needed to unleash his final attack.

Dark Meta raised his sword, about to bring it down and finish off Meta, when a crescent-like blade flew towards him from behind. He spun around just before it hit, and it slammed into his mask, knocking it off. He had a similar face to Meta's, although Dark Meta's was slightly…darker.

He raised his sword in an attempt to defend himself, but Kirby's hammer arched over the block and slammed down hard into Dark Meta. So hard in fact, that combined with his prior wounds, he couldn't take anymore…so he puffed out of existence in a small cloud of gray dust.

After Meta and Kirby finished coughing, Kirby held out a hand for Meta. Meta stared at for a second before taking it.

"Thank you for your help, Kirby."  
Kirby just smiled and make a cute…noise…thing.

"I'll take that as a 'you're welcome'."

Kirby turned around to see if any trace of Dark Meta was left…and there was.

Marx flew back towards the center of the group, and split in half again. This time though, a round, dark circle appeared in the center of the halves. Each half was the same distance from the hole, as it shot out sparks of energy.

"What the heck is that?" Falco asked.

"I don't…hey, Falco, what's your Reflector doing?" Raichu asked, having recovered enough to stand up.

"What?"  
Falco looked down and saw that his Reflector on his belt was moving on its own. It was fluttering as if it was trying to escape. Falco put a feathered hand on it to stop it, and noticed his feathers were starting to point in the same direction as the Reflector.

"Agh!" Diddy yelled clapping his hand down on his hat before it flew away. Raichu caught a glimpse of a red feather shoved beneath it, before Diddy managed to plaster it back down tightly on his head.

"What's that feather?"  
"It's the same to me as that is to you," Diddy said quickly, pointing towards Raichu's chest.

Raichu looked down and saw his normally hidden pendant being dragged away from him. With a yelp of surprise he grabbed it and shoved it back into his fur, holding it tightly.

"That hole is pulling us in!" Bario said, as all around them the Smashers had to grab onto their various items and clothing to prevent them from flying off.

"Kill that guy!" Link said, firing off an arrow.

The arrow flew towards Marx, but as it neared him the incredible gravity of the black hole-like object curved it, and sucked it in harmlessly. The other attacks repeated the same actions, none landing more than a glancing blow on Marx…and bit by bit the Smashers were inexorably drawn to the hole.

There was a sword. Kirby looked at it. It was virtually identical to Meta's short, pointy sword, only instead of a golden-yellow it was considerably darker. Kirby stared at it for a moment before opening his mouth…and swallowing it.

Using his strange copy power thing, Kirby managed to make a sword appear in his arm. It didn't look like Meta's though, this one was more similar to Link's or Bario's, but shorter and thicker. Kirby looked at it for a moment before grinning.

"Nice. Looks like you just got a new ability," Meta said.

"Okay!" Kirby said cheerfully.

Meta suddenly shot around and looked back towards the others. It was pretty obvious something bad was happening.  
"That's not good! Let's go!"  
"Okay!"  
Several of the Smashers were resorting to grabbing the ground, its soft soil providing a good grip…but they were still being dragged, and the pull was getting stronger. Link and Bario had jabbed their swords in the ground and were holding onto those, but it was taking all of their strength not to get swept up.

Only Mario continued to attack, firing firebomb after firebomb, his massive strength clear as he took long slow steps back from the hole, only to be dragged forward a few more inches. Sooner or later though, one of the group would slip.

It was Samus.

With a cry of terror she lost her tenuous grip on the ground and flew towards the hole, shooting past Link. He tried to grab her, but he missed.

"Samus!"  
Samus is not just some damsel in distress though. She can take care of herself…and she did, unfortunately for Mario. She shot out her energy whip as she flew past Mario, and like it was supposed to, it attached to him and shocked him.

He got over the pain fast though, and managed to grab it and pull her in, wincing with every new shock that passed through his body. Fortunately his rubber gloves prevented a similar treatment for his hands. Once she was close enough to actually hold onto him, she cut off the whip.

"Sorry about that," Samus said sheepishly.

Mario glared at her for a minute, but then smiled and held on tight.

Samus suddenly grasped how close she was to Mario, and realized parts of her body were being held to another in ways she had never felt before, especially given how tight her suit was.

Struggling to hold down her blush Samus whispered furiously to herself, "First chance I get, I'm getting some kind of suit that doesn't make me feel naked."

Marx continued holding open the hole, and it seemed all was lost…until, given extra speed by letting themselves go with the force of the hole, Kirby and Meta slashed right through both halves of Marx, splitting him into fourths.

Instantly he exploded, his attack fading, and covering the Smashers with a healing pink dust.

Mario let go of Samus and she backed off, looking at the ground and pushing her hair back. She glanced up at Link, but when she saw him looking back she quickly looked back at the ground.

"Is that it?" Link said.

"What?" Samus asked, looking back up.

"Are we done here? Can we go finish this now?"  
"Oh…thought you meant…," Samus trailed off.

"I guess so," Bario said.

However, they weren't done yet. With a startling pop something big and weird suddenly appeared in front of them.


	42. All that Matters

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Forty-Two: All that Matters…**

Something large and weird looking was floating in front of the Smashers. It had a ball-like shape; about two or three times the size of Kirby with many white sides. It had twenty-one red and black circles all over it, which contrasted sharply with the white coloring. The thing floated calmly in the air a few feet above the ground, and what it was exactly was unclear.

"What is that thing?" Diddy asked, not sure if they should attack it or not.

"I…am not sure," Meta said.

"I know," Bario said, "I've heard about this. It's Miracle Matter, right Kirby?"  
Kirby nodded.

"One day I'd like you to go into some detail on how you know all this about these creatures…but I don't think now is the time," Link said.

"I'd be glad to, but I agree. Now _is_ a bad time. As I'm sure Kirby can vouch, this thing is tough."

Miracle Matter punctuated his statement by flying slowly towards the Smashers. Without waiting for an order, they opened fire…and their attacks dissipated against an invisible force field surrounding Miracle Matter.

"How do we get past that?" Falco asked.

"Just wait…it can't attack us like that," Bario said, his body tensed up, as if he was preparing for some strenuous action.

Miracle Matter stopped a few feet away and then the various sides on its body, each of which were shaped like a triangle, separated and were absorbed into what appeared to be a brown boulder inside the shell. It floated there for a second before spawning four large rocks, one above, one below and two to either side.

"Wait for it," Bario said.

They didn't have to wait long…Miracle Matter put on a burst of speed and flew over the Smashers, flinging the rocks at them. The rocks were easily dodged, but Miracle Matter was unperturbed.

They retaliated by firing at it, but their attacks seemed to cause little damage.

"Hit it with the rocks! It's weak to that!" Bario said.

Mario nodded and grabbed one of the rocks and hurled it at Miracle Matter. The rock slammed into it hard, producing a rather large crack and forcing it to drop to the ground. Matter rolled forward, attempting to squish Mario. He jumped over it, but it was fast and it clipped his foot as he jumped, knocking him back down to the ground.

It turned around and was about to attempt a second squishing when Kirby jumped over Matter and turned into a rock, slamming hard enough into Miracle Matter to cause it to shatter…and beneath the rock was the original, mostly white form.

It floated back in the air, and at first it appeared unharmed…but the Smashers quickly noticed that three of the circles were now entirely dark. Once it was in midair again it transformed, this time revealing an orange ball surrounded by eight spikes that gave it a vaguely sun-like appearance.

"What now?" Link asked, still uncomfortable with taking orders from Bario.

"I guess now we hit him with something…pointy."  
"Pointy?" Falco asked.

"Yeah, like Link's arrows, or a sword and WATCH OUT!" Bario said, diving to the side as one of the spikes lengthened considerably, nearly skewering him. Two more spikes almost did the same to Samus and Kirby, but they managed to avoid it.

Link managed to pull out his bow and shoot off a few arrows at Miracle Matter while it was busy retracting its spikes. They didn't penetrate the armor, but they did create small cracks in it. Link was about to reload and fire again, when a spike forced him to dodge.

Kirby and Meta looked at each other, and nodded. The two jumped up, Meta quickly taking the lead thanks to his superior aerial ability. Matter extended several of its spikes but Meta easily dodged them and managed to deal a powerful slash to it before having to drop down as it rotated to bring more spikes to bear.

Kirby managed to dodge the spikes as well, although they came a lot closer to him and managed to hit it with another mighty sword strike. The attacks did enough damage to shatter the orange shell, revealing the inner Matter yet again. It was virtually unchanged…except now six circles were dark.

Miracle Matter didn't waste any time…it transformed again, this time into a ball of orange and yellow fire, with a light red flames leaping off from it. Mario didn't even need an order for this, he fired several firebombs into it, but Matter, despite flashing slightly, ignored that and shot a blast of fire at Mario, than a second and a third one at Kirby and Meta.

Meta managed to use his cape to reappear away from the attack, but Kirby only managed to roll part of the way away, one of his feet got a bit scorched. Mario used his cape to deflect the majority of the attack back at Matter, but it fired off more flames, forcing Mario to jump away.

At that moment Falco used his Fire Falco ability to slam into Miracle Matter from behind, shattering its flamy shell.

It stayed in its white form for only a moment before turning into a trio of close together thick green and blue crescents, with the first surrounded by rotating sharp "teeth". It dropped to the ground and sawed towards Link.

He didn't want to stay and see if his shield would work blocking it, he rolled aside at the last second, revealing that this form of Miracle Matter was not very good at turning. As it slid past him he slashed at it, and managed to hit the third crescent, causing it to dissipate.

Kirby dashed towards it from the side, limping slightly because of his foot. When he was close enough he threw his cutter blade at it. It slammed into the second crescent, causing that one to vanish. The Cutter blade came back to Kirby and he prepared to throw it again, but someone beat him to it.

As Matter attempted to turn Bario managed to get close enough to attack. He narrowly turned aside the creature with one blade, before skewering it with the other.  
The third and final crescent shattered, yet again revealing Miracle Matter. It floated into the air, twelve of its circles now dark, and without a pause it turned into a large purplish bubble-like ball.

"What the?" Raichu asked, a sentiment that was shared by the other members of the group.

Even Bario looked uncertain, and was unable to provide immediate orders.

Four small bubbles, identical in shape and color to the large one suddenly appeared around Miracle Matter and slowly floated towards the Smashers. When they had narrowed the distance slightly they split again into smaller balls, this time forming eight.

They floated motionless for a moment, and none of the Smashers were quite sure what to do, or even if this was a threat. Kirby knew something was up, but it had been a while since he had fought this foe, so he was having a difficult time recalling it.

The question of whether or not this was a threat was soon answered.

The balls put on a surprising burst of speed and shot towards the Smashers, one to each one, with the exception of Raichu who lucked out.

The attack was so surprising that they almost didn't react fast enough, but they did. All eight of the attacked Smashers managed to avoid a direct hit.

Too bad for them these things didn't need a direct hit.

As soon as they hit the ground the balls exploded. The explosions were small, but they were enough to knock several Smashers off their feet, and shower all of them with bits of debris. Most of them were now bearing several minor cuts.

"Oh!" Bario said excitedly, looking past the explosive attack, "It's a bomb element! Hit it with bombs!"  
"No duh," Diddy said a little angrily, jumping up and throwing an orange grenade at it.  
Link shot off a bomb arrow at the same time. The arrow hit first, followed closely by the grenade and their combined explosive power was enough to shatter the "bubble."  
Miracle Matter wasted no time however, before turning into a yellow ball with sparks of electricity arcing out from it, making it appear even more "sun-like" now than it did when it was in its spike form.

It shot out a long beam of energy that flew towards Samus. She dodged it and fired a blast from her gun at Matter, a move that was mimicked with an electric ball by Raichu.  
Miracle Matter flashed, but when the beam hit the ground something interesting happened. It rebounded and slammed into Matter, forcing the beam to split into two pieces, which shot off towards Kirby and Meta.

Both dodged, and Samus and Raichu fired again. Matter shuddered, but the two beams rebounded and split again and this time they went for Link, Falco, Diddy and Bario. They dodged again, as the beams weren't that fast…although they were getting faster.

Samus charged up her gun and fired that, and Raichu shot off a small bolt of lightning…but Miracle Matter wasn't done yet.

The beams rebounded once again, splitting into eight balls of electricity that flew towards eight Smashers like the bomb attack. This time Mario was the lucky one.

They dodged the balls, and made sure to get some extra distance, which was good because they exploded into sparking, painful static electricity that managed to miss all of the Smashers…except for one.

Raichu didn't dodge it. Instead, he let the attack hit him, and used it to power a more powerful lightning bolt attack that slammed into Miracle Matter hard enough for the ball to shatter, revealing the normal white Matter…that now had only three colored circles.

It changed again, this time into a large blue and white ice-cube with six ice-pyramids floating around it.

It shot off the ice things at the Smashers, all of which dodged them, with the exception of Mario and Kirby, both of whom caught one of the pyramids. They were pretty cold, so rather than hanging onto them they threw them at Miracle Matter.

Both connected, Mario's with considerably more force. The ice form shattered, and it looked like Miracle Matter couldn't take anymore as it shrank in on itself, and then each of the triangles that made it up shot outwards and exploded.

Fortunately, none of the Smashers were caught in Miracle Matter's death throes.

The Smashers stood still for a moment, unsure of whether or not they should be celebrating their victory, or remain cautious because of the surprisingly easy victory.

They should remain cautious.

There was a strange wheezing noise coming from behind the Smashers, and they turned to face this new threat. As it neared, clouds slowly started to cover the sky. Dark clouds.

The object was obscured in darkness, and it looked like a blobby misshapen circle. It floated haphazardly towards the Smashers, dipping and rising erratically. When it neared enough for the dim light to illuminate it, it became obvious as to why it was acting the way it was.

It was Dedede. However he didn't look the same. His eyes were shut, and his stomach was pitch-black.

"What's he doing here?" Samus asked angrily.

"I'm not…sure," Bario said slowly.

Dedede didn't stay still for long. With a surprising speed the dark patch on his stomach opened up in a horrifying eye that stared at them with a harsh glare.

"WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!" Falco yelled, his words echoed, at least somewhat by most of the other Smashers.

"Bario?" Link asked, "What…what do we do?"  
"He's possessed. Just attack him…this is only a precursor."

"Possessed by what? A precursor to what?" Raichu asked.

Bario didn't answer as he flung several magic balls at Dedede. Dedede seemed to take the damage, and the eye on his stomach retaliated by firing three dark balls of energy at the Smashers.  
The balls moved slowly and were easily evaded. The Smashers needed no further prodding to attack and several projectiles were flung at Dedede.

He switched up his attack, his eye-filled stomach turning into a teeth-filled mouth that started chomping towards the Smashers.

Although the attack was startling, it was also slow, and so the group had little trouble evading it, and in fact Link, Mario, Kirby and Bario all managed to land a powerful slash or smash into Dedede.

Having apparently taking enough damage he collapsed to the ground, and a dark ball shot out of him and high into the shy.

The Smashers watched the ball warily, until a sharp coughing from Dedede grabbed their attention.

"He's still alive?" Samus said, displeased with the idea.

"Apparently…" Bario answered.

"Of course I'm still alive," Dedede growled, looking up at the growing ball of darkness that was forming above them, "Looks like Dark Matter's still causin' problems."

"Dark Matter…that's what I suspected," Bario said.

"What is Dark Matter?" Link asked, "And why didn't you tell us before?"  
"Didn't have time, and it really isn't important. Basically Dark Matter is evil, and can possess things, turn into Zero, look we should really focus more on killing it than talking about it."  
"I tink dat I'll help," Dedede said, hefting his hammer up.

"You? Help us? Why?" Meta asked.

"I'm pretty sick of dat ting taking over my body and messing with my kingdom. Plus, I really want to hit someting after dat bird beat de crap out me." Dedede stated, hefting his hammer.

"I believe him," Bario said, turning back to Dark Matter as it neared its completion.

"You do? How?" Samus asked, surprised that he was willing to accept someone who tried to have her captured.

"His reasons are sound. Let's just beat this guy so we can go."

The other Smashers nodded, some muttering their disapproval of the situation, but all agreeing that it was not the appropriate time to worry about it. Above them Dark Matter had taken a clear and definite form.

It was bigger than Miracle Matter, about twice its size. And where Miracle was blocky and looked like a mess of polygons shoved together into a shape, this one was smooth and round and much more ball shaped. It was mostly black, with some strange purple petals ringing its back, and its large white eye was marked only by a dark pupil that glared down at the Smashers.

It swooped down at them, intending to use its massive bulk to flatten them, but the slow attack was easily dodged, and the Smashers punished it heavily with their projectiles as it attempted to retreat back into the sky. As it flew past them Dedede hit it hard with his hammer, knocking it slightly off balance. It recovered quickly and managed to return to the safety of the air.

Dark Matter than released its petals and they flew at the Smashers quite quickly. Some were blocked or deflected, but Mario, Link and Raichu were all hit pretty hard and had to take a moment to catch their breath.

Dark Matter didn't give them a moment.

As soon as it noticed some of them slowing, either from being hit by its attack, or merely fatigue from their previous battle, it started firing off thin streaks of black lightning.

The bolts were fast, and several of the Smashers, while managing to avoid direct hits, were suffering electrical burns from the near miss, and the dark aspect of the lightning gave it a poisonous aspect.

Raichu, still trying to recover from where the solid petal thing slammed into his back was the only one not dodging. Even Dedede was doing pretty well in avoiding the attacks, although he was apparently useless at long distance combat.

His lack of movement made him a sitting duck for a lightning bolt from Dark Matter…which was exactly what he wanted. For the second time in recent memory he absorbed the power behind the attack and used it to fire off a very powerful bolt at Dark Matter, so powerful that when it was combined with the damage it had already suffered it caused the dark shell to shatter…revealing the creature inside Dark Matter.

The powerful attack did not come without a price however. Absorbing attacks like that while temporarily beneficial did drain him, especially if he used most of it to unleash an attack. Additionally, the dark aspect of the attack was not drained off in his release of the energy, and so Raichu collapsed, struggling to remain conscious.

"Raichu!" Diddy said, turning away from the changed Dark Matter.

"Not now Diddy!" Bario commanded, "He did his part…make sure you do yours."  
"But!"  
"Bario's right…we have other things to worry about," Link said, realizing the irony of _him _telling someone else to listen to Bario.

The thing that was revealed in the destruction of Dark Matter was something Bario called Zero. It looked like a large white, slightly deformed egg. Once the Dark Matter shell was gone it expanded, soon taking up considerably more room than Dark Matter did. Once it was finished growing it opened up its small red eye…and attacked.

The eye flashed at the Smashers, and it fired off several red laser bolts. They were somewhat slow, and the Smashers abused that seeming mistake by pummeling Zero with their projectiles, at least the ones that could reach him.

However the laser bolts had an added effect. Once they hit something they exploded outward, creating a small ring of energy. It burned several of the Smashers that were too slow to avoid it.

"Ow!" Falco yelled, his right side sizzling, "OW!"

"Just keep firing!" Bario said, his left boot missing a good chunk of material from another close call.

Zero fired again, but this time, instead of spreading it out it focused most of them on Kirby…four shots to be exact.

Kirby tried to dodge, but he didn't have enough speed. He was about to turn into a rock, when someone smacked him hard enough with a hammer to send him out of harm's way.

It was Dedede.

He was unable to dodge two of the blasts and was hit hard but was still able to look at Kirby, who was looking back quite confused.

"I'm da only one who's going to smash dat dere you," Dedede said with a grin before staggering to his feet, "and don't you forgets it!"

Deciding that its current attack was ineffective, Zero spawned some miniature Dark Matter creatures out of its body and dispatched them at the Smashers.

They were faster than the laser bolts, but not nearly as dangerous. Once they hit a target they vanished, and the worst the Smashers suffered from was a couple of large bruises.

Zero paused than, as deciding what to do. Upon reaching a conclusion, after numerous attacks hit it, it started firing off laser bolts again.

"Oh no," Mario said, pulling out his hammer and donning his cape.

Amazingly fast he flew up, arcing over the bolts before slamming feet-first into Zero and following that with a powerful hammer blow.

Zero started rolling around in midair, stopping its laser attack in an attempt to knock Mario off. Its super smooth body was already hard to stay onto so as soon as it looked like he was about to fall, Mario jumped off.

Unfortunately for Zero, when it stopped firing that let Dedede get close enough to do something. After a few losses to Kirby, Dedede had trained himself to suck in air and float around like him, and he could get some vertical distance. He used that ability to get close to Zero's position.  
Dedede was running out of air though, and he didn't want to attempt a feeble attack from below before he fell. So, taking a page out of Mario's book he gathered all of his energy and flew up, over Zero and came crashing down on his head and slammed his hammer down right after that.

Zero made a strange whistling sound and with a sharp twist, threw Dedede off. Zero than began to change…

It grew slightly larger and rounder, taking on more of a spherical shape. Large white, red-tipped wings grew out of its side and a gold halo formed over its head. At its bottom a large spiked protrusion grew, until it was the same length as the main body.

"Zero Two," Bario said, "Mario! Get out of the sky!"  
"Eh?" Mario said.

02 blinked its eye and five crystalline objects spawned from its eye and flew towards Mario. He flew out of their way, but like so many things in this battle they exploded, knocking Mario out of the sky, and hard into the ground.

"This thing changed again? What is he, Vaati?" Diddy asked.

"Aim for the eye!" Bario commanded.

"Really? An enemy who's vulnerable in the eye? What will happen next?" Link asked, firing an arrow at the eye.

"Shut up Link, not now," Samus said, annoyed that her Paralyzer beam didn't reach far enough to hit 02.

Kirby was pretty irritated to, as he and Samus were basically relegated to dodge duty. A few shots hit the thing's eye and it started to release a poisonous green cloud from the large spike, forcing all of them to jump back.  
As the battle came closer to Raichu, who had managed to stand, he started to charge up some electricity. He was about to shoot a bolt at 02, but Samus grabbed him.

"Don't. They got this," she told him, a bit of scolding in her tone.

"But I should be helping!" Raichu said, "I can't be weak."  
"You're not…look, we should worry about this later, cause now we should MOVE!" Samus yelled, carrying Raichu with her as she jumped away from one of 02's crystalline attacks.

Kirby stared at 02, more particularly the spiky bottom…and something sparked in his brain.

When the toxic clouds cleared, and 02 had fired a burst of exploding crystals at Mario, Link and Meta, Kirby jumped into the air.

He floated along towards the spike, and when he was close enough, he threw his Cutter blade at it. It slammed into the middle of the spike and stuck. Green gas seeped from the cut, but it seeped downwards and Kirby stayed above that.

02 made a squeaking noise, but a burst of concentrated fire from the others distracted it. Kirby grabbed onto one of the spikes sticking out of the larger one and yanked out the Cutter blade.

Pulling out the sword he got from Dark Meta he slashed again with both blades, getting them stuck in opposite sides of where the initial blow was. Before 02 could retaliate, he hammered the severely weakened section of the spike, snapping it off.

As soon as that happened 02 shook so violently Kirby was flung off, but not before he managed to grab his weapons. As he dropped…02 exploded.

Pink dust covered all of the Smashers, healing them. Dedede was startled, having never seen this before, but its rejuvenating effects were certainly welcome.

The Smashers started to relax; after all…surely the battle was done?

It was not.

Shooting out of the vanishing cloud of pink dust came the bodiless red eyeball of 02. It flew into the center of the Smashers and shot forth a powerful burst of energy, sending Dedede flying. The others jumped towards it, trying to destroy it…and it exploded.

The explosion expanded into a portal that dragged the Smashers into it before vanishing completely…leaving Dedede alone on the cloudy wasteland.


	43. Can he let you do that?

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Forty-Three: Can he let you do that?**

The portal dumped the Smashers on the ground, rather like the last few times. They quickly moved out of the way, so that they wouldn't end up in a tangle of bodies and looked around their new surroundings.

Massive buildings, skyscrapers if you will, were all around them. There were deep pock-marks in many of them, several had sides completely blown out of them and shards of glass covered the streets.

"What is this place?" Diddy asked.

"I think…" Falco started to say, before sounds of a battle reached their ear.

Falco ran off through the deserted streets, the sunny sky lending an ominous feeling to the abandoned, ruined city.

The others followed, not sure what he was doing. Raichu and Diddy both had to be very careful, as the shards of glass could hurt their unprotected feet.

The creepy thing about this city was not that it was abandoned. Rather, it was the fact that it looked like it had been abandoned recently. In fact, judging by the fact that several of the buildings still had power…it might have been as recently as just a few hours ago.

The Smashers climbed over a large chunk of ruined steel and rock and they stepped into what appeared to be the central section of the city. They also stepped into a warzone.

What they saw captivated their attention, and with the exception of a few strangled gasps from Falco, the following events kept them speechless for several minutes.

The first thing they saw was a bullet-shaped brown ship with thin, frail looking wings flying directly overhead, a bright stream of energy trailing behind it. The first thing they heard was a low whooshing sound, followed by an explosion.

The second thing they saw were dozens of those vessels firing upon a massive object that looked like it was someone's attempt to create a face entirely out of pale-blue squares.

The small ships were shooting light green lasers that looked like small needles flying into the face, a face with an eye as big as one of those ships.

In the distance, several large lumbering vessels that were vaguely tubular were breaking orbit, their massive engine exhaust shaking the ground behind them.

The face turned towards the large ships and breathed a storm of large pale-blue and white square tiles. They flew very fast, expanding outwards as they neared the ships.

The smaller ships, which were clearly some kind of defense force turned their fire towards the tiles, blowing up most of them. A few slipped past though and slammed into escaping ships, opening up huge gashes and creating several dents. The ships wobbled under the attack, but managed to keep going and soon they had escaped from view.  
The face turned back to the defenders who were now focusing their fire on the nose of the face. The creature, or machine, or ship, whatever it was, retaliated by firing more of those tiles at its attackers.

They put on bursts of speed and agility that was quite surprising, but the tile storm was too large for them all to avoid, and several ships were destroyed outright. A few were hit with only glancing blows, but the damage was done, and they were sent into irreversible crashes. A few of the damaged ships had enough control to steer themselves into the face, causing giant explosions that ripped deep cracks in the thing.

Apparently unable to take any more damage it exploded outward, destroying a trio of the remaining ships with its enormous chunks of destroyed metal. Several of the pieces burrowed themselves into the nearby buildings, wrecking them even further.

The surviving ships did a quick fly over the area before following the same path as the large ships earlier. Soon, they too were gone.

There was a long pause as the sounds of burning metal worked their way through the Smashers ears. After the silence stretched so long as to be painful, Link turned to the others.

"Would someone like to explain WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?"

Surprisingly, it was not Bario who answered, as that was who Link was glaring at. Falco cleared his throat.

"Welcome…to Corneria."  
"Corneria, but that's where…oh," Samus started to say, before realizing that Falco was not liking the sight of his home being destroyed.

"What happened here?" Falco asked miserably.

"What was that?" Diddy asked, pointing where the face had been.

"That? That was one Andross's inventions," Falco said, a tone of hard determination leaking into his voice, "Andross…of course."  
"Andross? That the big bad for you?" Samus asked.

"Yes. Looks like he's been busy while I was gone."  
"What about Fox? Couldn't he have at least tried to stop…whatever happened here?" Link asked.

"I don't think Fox is here Link," Bario said, looking around.

"Why not?" Link asked.

"What do you want to bet he was snatched up by one of Master Hand's goons as well?" Bario asked.

"No…not him, not…shoot, knowing him he probably took on more than he could handle," Falco said.

"Does that mean…yes?" Diddy asked, "You don't think they got him _and_ D.K?"

"Probably, and we can bet they have Luigi, Peach and Zelda and who knows how many others," Samus said.

"I think we're going to have to assume we're the only ones left from the previous tournament…the rest are probably all captured," Link said grimly.

"Yeah…," Falco said, staring in dismay at the ruined city.

"Well Falco…what do we do?" Bario asked.

His question caused many of the others to shoot looks of surprise at Bario, and no one was more startled than Falco himself.

"What…why…are you asking me?"  
"This is your home, who better to ask than someone who actually lived here?"  
Falco looked taken aback, and looked at the others as if searching for answers, or support.

He got it. Every single one of them looked back at him, clearly trusting that he would know what to do. The last several days have forged a tight bond among all of them, and with the exception of Link for Bario, not a one of these people wouldn't put their life on the line for the other. Seeing that gave Falco the courage to answer.

"Well, the first thing we need to do is figure out what exactly happened here, and after that…I guess we take on Andross."  
"How are we going to find out what happened here? It looks like everyone left," Raichu said, gesturing in the direction of the vanished ships.

"Perhaps those vessels may be able to assist us," Meta Knight said, pointing his sword at a trio of small dots moving rapidly towards them.

"What the? Why are ships still here?" Falco asked.

No one answered. The three ships rapidly closed the distance between them, and when they were close enough to be clearly visible, Falco gasped.

The ships had a pointy dagger like appearance going on, what with the double pointed front and the hard, angular wings. They looked very sleek though, and the red and white coloring was somewhat intimidating. One of the ships stuck out more than the other two due to its large red rose design on the side. As the ships landed gracefully on the roof of one of the less destroyed buildings Falco started talking.

"Those are Star Wolf's ships!"  
"Star Wolf?" Link asked.

"Yes, they are led by Wolf the wolf, and they have Leon the chameleon and Panther the…panther, and the ships are called…Wolfen," Falco trailed off, noticing how…imaginative those things sounded.

"I hate to say this Falco, but you guys need to be a bit more creative in how you name things here," Samus said with a slight grin.

"What?" Falco asked.

"Well you have Fox the fox, Wolf the wolf, Leon the chameleon, Panther the panther, Falco the falcon-"  
"I'm a bluejay!"

"What's next?" Samus continued, undeterred, "Rob the robot? Star Snake led by Snake the snake?"  
"Don't be silly Samus," Meta said, "A snake has no arms. He could not possibly pilot a ship."  
The others weren't sure whether to spend more time staring at Meta or Samus in shock. Finally Link spoke up.

"Samus…I do believe you made a joke," he said, starting to smile.

"I've made them before," Samus said, with a mock glare at Link.

"What? It is impossible. Snakes do not have the necessary appendages," Meta said, clearly missing the concept of a joke.  
A loud whooshing sound stopped the joking and joke-missing, and the Smashers turned towards the Wolfen's as the canopies popped open. Three creatures came out of them.

The first to pop out was clearly the one called Wolf. He leapt out and landed gracefully on his hand and knees. He stood up, flashing a predatory grin down towards the Smashers fifty feet below.

He had on a dark jumpsuit with a bright blue vest. His boots extended to his knees, with short spikes on the end of the kneepads. He had a gray face with a relatively long snout. His mouth was full of sharp teeth and a white shock of fur stretched back from his forehead to behind his pointed ears. His large eyebrows were similarly white, and a strange blue monocle like thing was over his left eye. He folded his clawed hands as he assumed a relaxed posture.

The second one of the ships was Leon. He came out pretty fast as well, but unlike Wolf he seemed to slither out, his green skin contrasting sharply with the Wolfen's colors. He assumed a relaxed pose behind and to the left of Wolf.

Leon was wearing a skintight blue jumpsuit that showed his three-fingered hands, spiny vertebra filled back and short curled tail quite clearly. His head was pointed slightly with large bugged out eyes that were mostly closed and a long scar arced down the left one.

The final one who left the ship was Panther. He sauntered out his ship, his stunning short purple fur attracting the eye of the Smashers. He assumed a lazy stance behind Wolf's right side.

He wore a blue jumpsuit with white armor over certain vital areas. A short tail stuck out of the back and a white line of fur curved beneath his left eye. His yellow eyes stared at the Smashers, clearly unimpressed.

"Hello Falco," Wolf said, his deep voice reverberating around the center of the ruined city, "It's been a while."

"What happened here Wolf?" Falco asked.

"Corneria's been evacuated, everyone left."

"Andross attacked," Panther purred, "He sent out like eight of those face things. The last one just got destroyed."  
"But that wouldn't be enough to take out the entire Cornerian Army, or make them flee," Falco said, confused.

"You're right there," Wolf said, "But Andross had a little help. Remember the Aparoids?"

"What?!" Falco yelled.

"What are the Aparoids?" Diddy asked.

"A race of powerful alien bugs with the ability to absorb people and technology," Falco quickly whispered before turning back to Wolf, "But that's impossible! We killed the Queen!"

"Well somehow Andross got her back and convinced her to work for him," Wolf said, "Between the two of them, Corneria never stood a chance. This place is ground zero for Andross's plan to conquer the system."

Falco was about to ask another question, but Bario beat him to it.

"What are you doing here? If this place is so dangerous, why stay?"  
At that, Wolf and his crew looked slightly uncomfortable, and if they weren't so freaking cool they probably would have looked down and kicked at some dirt. As it was, there was an awkward pause. After a few seconds Leon flashed a glare at Falco.

"Fine, I'll answer your question you annoying bird."  
"But I didn't-"

"Andross grabbed us," Leon said, "He gave us a job to do, and said if we didn't do it we were dead."  
"And…what was the job?" Falco asked nervously.

"He told us some guys would be showing up here with you soon, and he wanted us to…" Wolf paused for a minute before finishing the sentence, "Kill you."

"But you can't," Falco said, before anyone else could answer.

Wolf looked at him and growled under his breath.

"Don't think that just because we helped you with those Aparoids before we'll help you again. I didn't do that because of any fuzzy feelings I had for Fox or you, or anyone on your stupid team!"

"That's not what I meant," Falco said, quite seriously, "I mean, after all we've been through, you guys won't stand a chance."

Several of the other Smashers nodded in agreement.

"Don't get to cocky, Falco," Wolf said, before he and the other two members of his team leapt back into their ships.

"Uh Falco…how deadly are those ships?" Raichu asked.

"Uh," Falco said, realizing that unlike most times against Star Wolf…he was not in his Arwing, "Pretty deadly."  
Bario looked at Falco for a moment, and then at the three Wolfen's which were just taking to the air now.

"Guys…scatter!"

Following Bario's lead the nine Smashers split up, trying to hide behind chunks of rubble, or at least use it for cover.

The Wolfens flew until they were well above the building line, and out of range for even the longest ranged attack from one of the Smashers, or at least it would take too long for the attack to reach them.  
Leon spotted Samus first and swooped his Wolfen around and started firing twin streams of green laser bolts at her, forcing her to quickly dive under a chunk of concrete. He made another low swoop, shooting at the debris, but by that point Samus had crawled away, using the ruined building pieces as cover.

Mario had ended up by Link and Falco, and looked like he was a shot away from yanking on his cape and laying some beat down on these guys, but Falco urged him to stay there. As Panther started firing at a fleeing Diddy, and Wolf began taking potshots at Kirby and Bario, he knew they had to do something.

He looked around; trying to refamiliarize himself with a place he never spent much time in anyways. He was usually with the rest of the Star Fox team in the Great Fox, or out on duty stopping some random guy from doing some random evil…still, he had a feeling that there was something here that could help them…

Another look gave Falco his answer. A building with the upper third completely gone, and most of the rest was burn-scarred, had a sign on it. A sign that said " AMRY". It took him a minute to realize the significance of that.

"Mario, Link, I know this sounds bad…but I need you guys to cause a distraction," Falco said.

"What?" Link asked angrily, "Why should we sacrifice ourselves for you?"  
"Because…that's an Armory, and I bet I can find something to shoot them down, but I can't get there if they blow me up, and it won't work if they see me go," Falco explained.

"Oh. Well…that's less selfish than I thought," Link said, "I'll do it."  
"Okeydokey!" Mario said cheerfully.

Falco gestured for the other two to crouch near the edge of the collapsed billboard they were hiding behind, while he sneaked towards the end by the Armory. Mario and Link waited until Star Wolf was busy facing the opposite direction shooting their friends, and then ran out at full speed.

Once Mario and Link were about thirty feet away from the billboard Mario shot out three firebombs at Panther's ship. They missed completely as Panther was flying far too fast to be hit, but the shots did distract him. Panther suddenly flipped around in the air, a maneuver that probably should have been physically impossible, but the Wolfen's were very advanced vessels.

Panther started firing at Mario and Link, so the two split up. Leon turned his attention to them and Wolf started firing at Meta who apparently had run out in the hopes of diverting the fire to the others.

Realizing that now would be the best time to run for it, Falco dived out from behind the billboard and sprinted for a gaping hole in the side of the Armory. He had twenty-three feet to travel, and he covered most of it by jumping under and behind rubble, expecting at any minute to feel the painful heat of a laser bolt ending his life.

None came though, and he managed to slip into the darkness of the building relatively unnoticed. He clambered over a few smashed boxes. A quick look revealed that the majority of the weapons in this place had been taken, either by the Cornerian Army, or Andross's forces.

The inside was relatively unharmed, and there were enough flickering lights to see alright. He decided he wasn't going to find anything here and kept going as the sounds of the battle grew fainter as he moved farther. He soon came across two sets of stairs, one going up and one going down. After a minute he decided to head up, figuring the best stuff would be higher in the building.

The stairs led him to a hallway. Looking around he started following the noise, until he came to a door on the right. Opening it he found a small room with several boxes of weapons. Clearly whichever force emptied the bottom floor did not have enough time to get to the second.

A bright light flashed by and he spun, gun pointed at…a window.

It was covered in so much dust that at first it seemed to blend in with the wall, but a flash from one of the Wolfen's lit it up. Looks like he ended up in a room facing the central section of the city.

He opened one of the unlocked metal boxes and found a gun that was slightly larger than his and several balls. Grinning slightly he grabbed the gun and the balls and attached them to himself, putting the gun on the other leg from the one the pistol was in, and placing the small balls in a pouch on his waist.

He tore open another box and found something very exciting…a rifle. He swept off some of the dust and checked it…fully loaded. He grabbed ammunition for both guns and then turned to the window.

He applied some force and it slid open easily. He looked out and spotted the Wolfen's firing indiscriminately. A small grin still on his face he stuck the rifle out of the window and put his eye to the scope.

Diddy and Raichu were pinned down under some rubble, and everyone else was in the same situation. Once in a while someone would make a run for it and almost get shot down, but fortunately the Wolfen's were having trouble hitting small targets.

Mario was the only one who had managed to get an attack even close to one of the ships but Leon did a quick spin of his wings and deflected the firebombs easily. Things were not looking good.

Seeing Link running again as his last hiding spot had been blown to pieces, Diddy decided to try to help.  
He ran out, waving his bright orange guitar. Panther broke off an attack on someone else and turned towards him. Diddy ran…and then realized he wasn't anywhere near anything to hide behind, and he couldn't go back or it would have drawn their fire towards Raichu. He crouched, preparing to at least attempt to dodge the lasers and then run before Panther could fire again…and a long, narrow laser beam shot out and cut in front of Panther, startling him into pulling up.

A second and a third shot out at Wolf and Leon. Wolf avoided it, but the third skimmed across Leon's ship, opening up a shallow gash that didn't look like it caused any damage.

Diddy took advantage of this opportunity and ran for cover while Star Wolf tried to find this new threat.

Falco managed to get off four more shots, none of which caused any significant damage to any of the ships before he had to pull out and run. He quickly slung the rifle over his back before he got out of the room. He dived to the side as several bolts piled into the spot he was standing at mere moments before.

He didn't get a chance to take a breather though as several more bolts cut in from the wall…apparently they were shooting through the other rooms. He ran towards the stairs, staying a step ahead of the bolts.  
He only had to dodge a small amount. Since Star Wolf couldn't see Falco, they didn't know which direction he went so it looked like they had split their fire. Additionally the Armory was rather sturdy and it didn't let all the blasts through. The bolts were still quite deadly however, just because there were fewer to worry about doesn't make you any less dead when one hits you.

Falco managed to make it back to the stairs. He took a second to decide up or down, but figured he'd be a sitting duck higher up, and if he remembered correctly, most of the upper floors were gone…so that left down.

As he ran down the stairs the firing ceased, but he wasn't going to risk going back up. He made it to the ground floor, and then kept going to the basement.  
The stairs ended in a short hallway. Falco quickly ran though it and turning a corner he stopped completely, shocked and disbelieving.

As he began to accept what he saw a grin blossomed on his beaked face.

"Well…I do prefer the air…but this will do."

Star Wolf had stopped firing because Bario and Raichu had run out and fired some attacks at the Wolfen's shooting at the building. Raichu's fizzled out before it made the distance, but Bario's managed to slam into Leon's ship hard enough to make it wobble.

Star Wolf had than turned their attention back to the others and the fight had degenerated back into the running and hiding, with no discernable difference from before. Falco's attempt to shoot the ships down was brave, but essentially useless. Something had to give. Either the Smashers would grow too tired to keep dodging, or the Wolfen's were going to run out of fuel.

Neither happened.

Instead there was a huge explosion in the ground near the Armory. Everyone froze, and Star Wolf stopped firing briefly.

Smoke wafted from the explosion, obscuring the damage. And obscuring the green laser bolt that flew out of it until it was practically on Wolf.

He managed to swerve enough to avoid being obliterated, but the attack skimmed past his engines and he found himself in a barely controlled spin.

As he attempted to make a non-crash landing several more bolts shot out, forcing Panther and Leon into evasive maneuvers as something emerged from the dissipating smoke.

It was a tank. A light blue, very stream-lined tank, full of sharp angles and points. Small jets on its bottom were lifting it up and out of the hole it had blown in the ground from the basement where it was being stored.

It quickly turned its large cannon towards Wolf's ship which was seeping smoke from its engines. Simultaneously Panther and Leon trained their weapons on the tank, the tank Falco was controlling.

They stayed in those positions for a while, until Wolf's voice echoed around the central area…apparently there was some kind of public speaking system in this section of the city, and Wolf could tune his ship's radio to it.

"Falco…don't fire," Wolf said, rather calmly for someone a laser bolt away from death.

Falco fiddled with some knobs on the complicated dashboard inside the tank and managed to tune its radio to the same frequency Wolf's was on.

"Why not? You guys surrender?"  
"I can't do that. If Andross finds out we didn't kill ourselves trying to kill you, he'll kill us."

"We…I at least, don't want to kill you," Falco said, knowing that the others couldn't care less about the lives of Wolf and his companions…but Falco knew there was more to him than met the eye.

"Well, you might have to."  
"No! There's got to be a better way!"

"Well, there is one thing."  
"What?" Falco asked.

"We could fight. Just you and me, no vehicles, just us."  
"I don't know if that's such a good idea…"

"What's the matter? Scared?" Wolf teased.

"No! Fine, what are the stakes?"

The others could hear the conversation quite clearly, and weren't liking it one bit.

"We have them! Falco can kill Wolf, and then we could take out the other two!" Link said.

"Before they killed Falco?" Bario asked.

"Well…maybe," Link said, not really thinking about that.

"We should hear them out," Samus said, "And if things go bad, than we step in."  
"Step in and do what?" Link grumbled.

No one responded.

"The stakes are simple Falco. We fight until one surrenders. If you win, we'll point you in the direction of the Aparoid Queen."

"What? Why her? Why not tell us where Andross is?" Falco asked.

"Because we want to have time to escape before he kills you," Wolf said simply.

"Oh. If I lose?"

"If you lose, we'll let you go, but we won't tell you where either is, and we'll ask you wait twenty-four hours before you go looking."  
"Why?"

"More time to escape," Wolf said, a smile on his face that was invisible to all, and yet they could hear it in his voice.

"And you'll just trust us to wait?"  
"You're an honorable bird…I'll trust you."  
"Alright…let's do this."  
It only took a few minutes to get everything ready.

In that time frame Leon and Panther had landed their ships, and were now by Wolf's with a handful of tools, trying to fix the scorched engine. The Smashers had come out of hiding, and were watching Falco and Wolf as they shook hands. Link, and well, everyone wasn't too happy about the situation, but it was the best alternative. Plus, they were watching Wolf and his cohorts, just in case they tried something.

There seemed to be no animosity between Falco and Wolf, and Wolf looked like he was looking forward to it.

"We're going to have fun with this thing," he told Falco, smiling.

"I might," Falco said, grinning back, "Not too sure about you."

"Why?"  
"I've been in a fighting tournament, and been battling monsters for the last several days. You've just been piloting your ship. You don't stand a chance in hand-to-hand against me!" Falco said, a hair's length away from laughing arrogantly.

Wolf frowned and gave Falco an odd look. It wasn't a look of anger or fear…rather, it was of disappointment.

"I warned you not to get to cocky…now, I will take you down," Wolf said, leaning back into a half-crouch, hands weaving protectively in front of him.

Falco scoffed, and deciding not to waste time by exchanging blows with Wolf, pulled out the gun he picked up in the Armory…the machine gun.

Falco opened fire from only a few feet away. Dozens of small green bolts of energy flew towards Wolf, and it looked like the fight was going to be over before it started…until Wolf swiped a hand down and hit something on his belt.

Immediately a pink semi-spherical field appeared around him…and reflected the bolts back twice as fast.

Falco was shocked and was hit in the chest by three of them before falling backwards and letting the others fly over him, almost hitting Meta Knight.

"A…Reflector?" Falco asked, wincing as he put a hand on his slightly burned chest…it was a good thing those bolts weren't very strong.

"Yes, one considerably more advanced than yours," Wolf said.

"I wasn't expecting that," Falco said, getting to his feet and holstering the gun, "Alright, maybe I underestimated your technology…but we'll see how you do with this!"  
Falco activated his Phantasm ability and shot forward, closing the difference between him and Wolf in an instant. Wolf was startled and took an involuntary step back, and that's when Falco struck.

He opened up his attack with two quick kicks at Wolf's legs. Wolf managed to knock them aside with his hands, and once the hands were out of the way Falco was able to deal a powerful slicing blow to Wolf's chests with his arms. Wolf was knocked back slightly, but his low stance made him difficult to move.

Falco reared back for another attack, but Wolf managed to dodge the attack and deliver a kick at Falco's knee. Falco fell, but as he hit the ground he pushed off, rolling back to his feet. He used his momentum to land a high kick to Wolf's head.

Wolf leaned in with the blow and slashed at Falco, opening up long but shallow cuts. Falco hissed in pain, but kept up the attack, alternating between kicks and punches. Wolf blocked several, and retaliated with attacks of his own, most including open-hand strikes that hurt more than Falco would have guessed.

Falco backed off slightly, breathing hard. Wolf was also breathing, but not as heavily.

"Done?" Wolf asked, smiling at Falco.

"Not even close."

At that, Falco activated his Fire Falco and slammed into Wolf at point-blank range. The attack continued for several yards, and when it stopped Wolf was lying on the ground, smoldering slightly.

Before Falco could take pleasure in his victory a purple aura surrounded Wolf and he jumped up and charged into a very similar looking attack, but instead of fire, Wolf merely drilled Falco along with a series of impossible kicks, ending with a powerful boot to the chest that sent Falco reeling.

Falco lay panting on the ground while Wolf stood over him.

"You're good…but I'm better," Wolf stated.

"No!" Falco said, sweeping his legs towards Wolf's knees.

Wolf hopped over the attack, which was exactly what Falco wanted. He used the momentum of the kick to land back on his feet and flowed that into a second kick that slammed into Wolf's ribcage. When Wolf pitched forward, Falco hit him under the chin with both arms, knocking his head back.

Falco was about to continue that line of attack, but instead of Wolf trying to get back on his feet he leaned farther back, until his legs were off the ground. Once that happened he spun, catching Falco in the stomach with a strike that knocked him up in the air, where Wolf kicked up again, slamming Falco in the back.

After that scissor kick combo, Wolf landed on the ground. He staggered to his feet, none to gracefully. Falco on the other hand hit the ground far harder, and it looked like he wasn't going to get up.

Panther and Leon were keeping an eye on the fight, their work with Wolf's ship all but done.

"Boss has this in the bag," Panther purred, twiddling a rose he carried on his suit between his furry paws.

"I wouldn't be so sure…that bird is tricky," Leon cautioned.

The Smashers were shouting words of encouragement to Falco, but once they saw him stand up after that last series of attacks they fell silent. They did not want to distract him from such a surprisingly difficult match.

"Are you done Falco?" Wolf asked.

"No…how…how are you this good?"  
"I've been practicing…for Fox. You're not him though. You should stop now, while you can still move."

"I won't. I will win!" Falco said, standing straighter.

"Why? The stakes aren't that big. If you lose…it won't hurt your cause too much."

Falco stared at Wolf for a long time, and when he answered, it was with a passion he rarely showed. His words were quiet enough so that only Wolf could hear, but the others could tell that something serious was being said.  
"Because…I can't lose. I…I…I have been with these…heroes the last several days. In their shadow. In the shadow of Fox. I spout off arrogance, and brag of my skills, and for once, for once…I'd like to prove I'm just as good as them…and if that means beating you, then so be it," Falco raised his arms in front of himself, prepared to finish this.

Wolf stared back, and then nodded grimly.

"I understand…but you still won't beat me Falco."

Rather than answering Falco charged forward. Wolf slashed towards him with both claws, but Falco jumped over them and kicked Wolf in the back. Wolf turned around, catching a second kick with his hand and pushing back, knocking Falco off balance.

Falco tensed immediately, prepared for some kind of follow-up attack, but instead of a physical strike Wolf pulled out his own gun and fired.

A large arrow-shaped green beam of energy shot out of the gun. It moved slowly, but it was so close Falco barely managed to dodge. He turned back to Wolf, hand raised to strike, when Wolf slashed his gun at him, opening a shallow cut on his arm.

Startled Falco gave the gun a closer look and saw that Wolf had attached a short curved dagger on the barrel.

"Ow!" Falco said, recoiling as Wolf slashed again.

Falco dodged it, and as Wolf reared back for another strike, Falco unslung the rifle on his back and used it in a most unusual manner…as a defensive weapon. He caught the strike on the barrel of the weapon, and used it to hold Wolf off as he pushed down.

While Wolf growled and pushed harder, Falco reached into his pouch on his belt, grabbing something. Before he could use whatever it was Wolf threw a punch at Falco's face.

He narrowly avoided it by turning his head, and then he twisted the rifle, smacking Wolf in the face with the butt.

Wolf recovered fast though and charged into Falco, hitting him three times with his fists before kicking him into the air.

While in the air Falco dropped his rifle, and Wolf smiled. Activating what was apparently his own version of the Fox Illusion ability, he dashed forward at a sharp angle to the ground, a purple field trailing behind him. When he contacted Falco at the apex of his maneuver, a powerful electric surge traveled through them, shocking Falco and sending him crashing to the ground, a small ball landing on Wolf's head as Falco fell past him.

Wolf grabbed it absent-mindedly while he looked at Falco.

"Looks like you lose," Wolf said, as Falco struggled to remain conscious.

"At least…I'm not going to explode," Falco wheezed.

Wolf frowned, and then shot a look at the ball in his hand. It was, indeed, a grenade. Letting out a yelp of fear he tossed it away from him, and covered his face with his arms.  
The grenade exploded only a few feet away from him, the force of the explosion powerful enough to send Falco rolling away, and Wolf was knocked off his feet.

Smoke obscured the combatants, and both Smashers and members of Star Wolf were worried…but when the smoke cleared, all was revealed.

Falco had staggered back to his feet, having managed to avoid the explosion part of the grenade. Wolf, also staggering back to his feet looked equally unsteady, and the singed chunks of fur and suit did not look like fun.

Wolf glared at Falco, and was about to say something when a chilling laugh permeated throughout the city.

A shadow slowly fell over the twelve, and slowly they turned to face the figure that stared at them from the sky.

"Andross…" Falco whispered.


	44. Beneath Perfection

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Forty-Four: Beneath Perfection**

"Falcon Punch!"  
"Could you stop that? It's not going to work," Fox said.

"Maybe not for you, but I will break out of here! FALCON PAUNCH!"

Fox sighed, and sat back down on the floor of his cage. After Captain Falcon woke up, all he said was a few muttered words about Ness being a…something, and then he spent the next thirty-eight minutes punching the cage.

Twenty minutes ago Luigi had woken up, and told them everything that had happened. Two minutes after that Ness woke up, and sullen and quiet he just curled up in the corner of the cage and whimpered.

Shortly after that, Marth and Roy awoke, and after realizing that they were still trapped, as were Popo and Nana, they told the others what had occurred, and were told themselves about the Ness fiasco. Nana seemed slightly apologetic, but Popo wasn't doing anything but glaring at the others, certain it was their fault he was still here.

Pikachu and Jigglypuff were both pretty mad at Pichu. The three Pokémon still refused to speak a language the others understood, but from what Fox could guess, they were probably thrown into a battle, and Pichu turned on them.

"We need a plan," Zelda said, speaking over Captain Falcon.

"Agreed," Marth said, his tone quick and focused.

"What could we possibly do though?" Luigi said, believing the situation to be quite hopeless.

Game & Watch made an affirmative beep, while the Ice Climbers, Ness and Pichu all murmured in agreement.

"No! Donkey get out! Donkey beat cage!" Donkey Kong stated, before grabbing one of the bars on his prison and attempting to tear it out.

"There's no use Donkey Kong," Zelda said, "These cages are made out of a very strong material, and apparently they're reinforced with dark magic from Ganondorf.

"I'm sure Bowser and Mewtwo did their share to make these impenetrable, as have the Hands," Peach said, "But we've all been in worse situations, right?"  
"Uh…no princess. This is about as bad as it gets," Fox said.

"Yeah, I have to agree with Fox on that," Roy said.

"But…yeah, okay," Peach said falling silent.

"So if we can't escape through the cages…wait…Game & Watch!" Marth called.

Game & Watch beeped at him.

"Can't you fit between the bars? You are 2-D…"  
Game & Watch shook his head, and stuck a hand towards the narrow open area between a pair of the bars…and a dark field shimmered into existence. Game & Watch recoiled his hand back, as if in pain, and the field shimmered back to invisibility.

"That's not going to work," Roy told Marth.

"I guessed that, thanks," Marth snapped at Roy.

"Hey! Don't get angry with me just because-"

"Because what? Because what Roy?" Marth said, yanking out his sword.

"STOP IT!" Zelda said, "Honestly, what are you two doing?"  
"Yes, stop. Marth, you can't even stick your hands through the bars, how could you possibly fight Roy?" Fox asked.

"Well…he started it," Marth said, putting his sword away.

"I did not!"  
"Yes you did!"  
"It doesn't matter!" Zelda said.

"We still need a plan," Peach said.

"Well…how about we escape when they let us out to fight?" Fox asked.

"It won't work," Luigi said, "There's nowhere to escape to."  
"Oh."

"Well…maybe we could manipulate them," Peach said, "Does anyone here know what they want?"  
"They want us to suffer," Ness said.

"Donkey say quiet! You not good!" Donkey Kong said.

"You be quiet! You know nothing! Nothing!"  
Donkey Kong started to growl, but Fox shushed him.

"I don't know what they want, and I don't really care," Zelda said, "All I care about is getting out…and right now, it looks like we're trapped here."  
"Wait!" Peach said, a look of excitement on her face.

"What?" Marth asked.

"What about the ones who aren't here? Like Mario, or Yoshi?" Peach asked.

"Or Link!" Zelda said, warming to the idea.

"What about them?" Popo said grumpily.

"They have to be coming to rescue us!" Peach said.

"Of course! All we have to do is wait!" Zelda said.

"Sorry princesses, I don't like the idea of waiting," Marth said, "And I don't think they could find us anyways."

"We'll see," Peach said huffily.

"Yeah, we will," Fox said, "And Falcon, WILL YOU JUST BE QUIET?"

Captain didn't respond, he just kept focusing on his punching. His arm was getting sore, and he'd probably take a quick break soon…his knuckles were starting to bleed.

He didn't want to say anything, didn't want to raise false hopes. Heck, he wasn't even sure himself…but as he punched…he almost thought he could see a crack starting to form…

_**In the Ruins of Corneria…**_

He was huge. Andross's head blotted out the sun, and his hands obscured the sky. And that was it. All there was of Andross was his head and hands. His skin was a dark tannish-brown, and his face had a distinctive monkey-like aspect, with a protrusive muzzle, ending in a fang-filled mouth. White hair extended down his head and to the back, where the neck would be if he had one.

"How did he find us?" Wolf asked in shock.

"Find you? He's after us!" Falco shot back.

Andross just looked down at them and cackled.

"ANDROSS!" Falco yelled, "What do you want you slimy ape?"

Both Falco and Wolf were breathing hard, and it took all of Falco's strength just to keep standing. Wolf was faring better, but parts of his fur and suit were smoking slightly, and with every minor movement he winced a little.

Andross didn't respond to Falco's yell, except to laugh again.

"That's odd," Falco said, turning to Wolf, "Usually he's yelling about how he's the brains behind the Lylat system by now."  
Wolf looked at Falco, as if expecting a punch line to an unfunny joke…but as Andross continued to laugh every few seconds, he realized that the bird had a point. As he Andross twitched and turned in apparent glee Wolf noticed that his hands…were shrinking.

"Star Wolf!" Wolf called, "Get in your ships!"

"Sir?" Leon asked.

"We're getting out of here."  
"Wolf…what's going on?" Falco asked, noticing that Andross was appearing to disintegrate before their eyes.

"We'll take care of that," Wolf said pointing towards the thing that appeared to be Andross, "You go after the Queen!"  
"Wolf!" Falco yelled, as Wolf started to run for his ship, "Where is she?"  
"Headquarters!" Wolf responded before leaping into his hopefully repaired ship.  
Leon and Panther were already off the ground, and in a few seconds Wolf was too. As they rose above the buildings, Andross…wasn't Andross. Its hands had vanished, and all the skin on its face had gone, revealing a brown skeletal parody of a monkey's head. It cackled again, but a few shots from Wolf's ship distracted it, and as Team Star Wolf flew off, the pseudo-Andross gave chase, flying by some unknown means.

"What was that?" Diddy asked.

"Another one of Andross's inventions…" Falco said, staring at the vanishing shapes.

"Why did Wolf get rid of him? Weren't they just trying to kill us?" Samus asked.

"To be honest, I don't really understand why Wolf does anything," Falco said, as if he didn't really care, "But he comes through when he has to."

"Well, glad he could do that after he beat the crap out of you," Link said, looking at Falco, who looked like he could barely stand.

"I'm fine!" Falco said, raising his arm…and almost falling over.

"No, you're not," Bario said, "Let me help."

Bario put his hand on Falco, giving him support. Falco leaned into it, and as he did a violet aura extended outwards, covering Falco. As it did Falco gasped, but didn't resist and in twenty seconds the aura was gone, and Bario had stepped back, a thin layer of sweat on his forehead…and Falco was as good as new.

All of his wounds, cuts, scrapes, were gone and even his clothes were repaired. Falco took a look down at himself, and then smiled at Bario.

"You're getting really good at that," he said excitedly, "Maybe we won't need that dust anymore."

"Healing is hard work…we should take every advantage we can, Falco," Bario said, his words admonishing, but his tone indicated a twinge of pride at being complicated.

"Yes…you are getting good at healing," Link said, but before he could continue Samus flashed him an angry look and he stopped talking.

"Where to now?" Samus asked.

It took Falco a bit before he realized she was talking to him. He cleared his throat and looked confidently at the others.

"Wolf told me the Aparoid Queen was at Headquarters, which I assume means the Naval Headquarters, a few blocks away from here. I say we go there and eliminate her."  
"Why?" Meta asked, "I thought our plan was to go to the Smashing Realm and destroy the evil at its source."

"Well, we did decide that, yes," Bario said.

"NO!" Falco yelled, surprising everyone, "Look…I'm sorry, I thought I could do this, but I can't."

"Do what?" Raichu asked.

"Be strong…but I can't leave my home like this, in the hands of Andross and that bug. Looking at it now…what it's like…no. You guys can leave if you want, but I'm going to stay and kill those fiends."  
The others stared at Falco for a minute, silent. Surprisingly, Link was the one to break it.

"I understand. I'll stay…although I don't know how effective I'll be here."  
"I will stay," Samus said.

The words were echoed by the others, and if any were unhappy with the decision, they hid their feelings well.

Falco choked back a tearful thanks, and started walking, leaving the Landmaster behind. Falco stopped and looked back and noticed a few of the others looking at him questioningly. Falco shook his head and pointed at the rubble, indicating that it would be impossible to move it through the ruins. The others followed, being careful to avoid debris and rubble. Soon they had crossed through the center section of the city and were in the dark streets between buildings.

"Agh!" Link said, as they passed under a low sign, grabbing his hand.

"What is it?" Samus asked.

"Nothing," Link said, covering his left hand.

Link's hand was itchy. The Triforce of Courage was still letting him know something was off…and judging by how the slight twinges and throbs were increasing gradually over the course of this journey, they were all heading towards something big.

The throb he had just experienced was pretty bad, but it didn't really help him figure out what he was missing. He continued feeling a vague sense of unease whenever he ventured close to Bario, but other than that he could detect nothing new…there were times when he wished he didn't have the Triforce piece.

And of course, Ganondorf was still out there. He had almost forgotten the guy, it had been several days since they had last fought. Their final confrontation was going to be soon…and Link had a surprise in mind that would _make _it the final confrontation.

And then there was Zelda. He didn't see her at Ganon's Tower, and she wouldn't have let Ganondorf grow to such power without fighting, so she must have been captured. Link felt for her, he really did…but there was something about Samus…

Raichu was not happy. It wasn't because of this journey, although he had to admit as he sliced his foot on a shard of metal for the third time since they started their walk, it wasn't very fun. No, he wasn't happy because he seemed no closer to Mewtwo.

He had joined up with the guard duty at Peach's Castle in the hopes of making powerful friends that would let him get his vengeance on the monster that murdered his soon-to-was wife, and technically he succeeded past his wildest dreams. The other eight were going to help him bring down Mewtwo, but it looked like that day was never coming. They had fought dozens of battles and beaten hundreds of enemies and yet…nothing.

Mewtwo was no closer to being killed now than he was three weeks ago, and Raichu would not, could not take much more of the anticipation, no matter how much he wanted to liberate other worlds.

Diddy hated Bowser. He was sure he wasn't the only one, Mario probably thought pretty poorly of the guy as well, but Diddy didn't know if Mario _hated _Bowser. He would help Diddy fight him, which was good because Diddy didn't think that he could actually beat Bowser on his own.

He joined up to check on Bowser, to verify the general suspicion on whether or not Bowser and Giga were the same, although everyone was pretty sure they were. Diddy had several tricks up his sleeves to take down Bowser, but throughout the course of this unexpected journey, he had revealed almost all of them and it was unlikely Bowser would be surprised.

His orange grenades, his guitar, his popgun's final shot, all had been used. Still, it might be enough to take out Bowser…but not enough for Giga Bowser. Hopefully he would have enough help to finish the guy off, and if not…well, Diddy had one final trick that he was saving only for Giga Bowser.

He hated Bowser, but he wasn't sure if he hated him for the right reasons. Diddy was sure Dixie was dead…and yet, something Funky said…

"We're here," Falco said, turning a corner.

The others followed him, with Samus trailing a bit behind.

"So are we sure that Wolf was telling the…oh."

Any doubt that Wolf had given them the wrong information vanished upon seeing the object in front of them. It was a massive purple-pink egg, formed out of a thick plated armor. Parts of a building could be observed around the corners of the egg, revealing the structure the egg had taken over, like some kind of parasite.  
There was a small opening in the front, where the original building's entrance was. That was not the sole way in or out though, as the Smashers watched, a large insect like creature with many multi-colored wings flew out of some unseen exit in the back of the egg and into the sky, shrieking in an eerie, almost mechanical way.

"What's that?" Diddy asked, shaken by the unnatural sight of both the egg and the insect.

"That…was an Aparoid. And I'm guessing in that egg thing is the Queen. Come on," Falco said, walking towards the egg.

The others followed, walking considerably slower now that they were in sight of their destination.

"Uh…Falco…anything you could tell us about this…Queen?" Bario asked hesitantly.

"What? Oh…yeah. Last time I fought her I was with Fox and the rest of the team. We were in Arwings, so I'm not too sure how this fight will go since we're on foot. She tried to trick us with the sounds of people we knew, so watch for that."  
"She did what?" Samus asked,

"The Aparoids can absorb people and machinery, and can mimic them to some degree. She mimicked people we knew to try and get us to be absorbed. Don't worry about that though, you have to be pretty near death to be absorbed by the Aparoids."  
"Anything else?" Meta asked.

"Well, the Queen spawns a lot of larvae, and they mature rapidly so we'll probably want to kill those quick, she has some powerful energy attacks and a thick armor over her soft spots, so we'll need to blast that off quick. She can also transform when she's getting beaten, so watch out for that."  
Before any more questions could be asked, the Smashers reached the entrance. Wordlessly they stepped inside, the ground an odd mix of hard concrete, and vaguely spongy egg stuff. The inside was lit by some light fixtures embedded in the walls and ceilings that still had some power, and by the material itself, as it gave off a faint glow that grew brighter as they walked through.

They were in a small tunnel, but a few feet ahead they could see it open up into something…something brightly lit.

They reached it in seconds, and with the practiced ease of people that have done this dozens of times they spread out around the room, even as they gasped in shock at what they saw.

They were obviously in the main section of the egg, as the chamber was huge. A large tunnel was where the Aparoids were leaving, near the roof and opposite where they came in. However, the thing that captured their attention and refused to let go was the Aparoid Queen.

She dominated the center of the egg. She was covered in gray scales that seemed to serve as a durable armor. There were no distinguishing features on her, and she looked almost like a tower in the fact that she was far taller than she was wide, she reached up to about half the height of the egg.

As soon as the Smashers had adjusted to her appearance, and were preparing to open fire, a sharp, robotic feminine voice echoed throughout the chamber.

"Bow before us. Submit to us!"  
"What's that?" Raichu asked.

"It's the Queen! Don't be distracted, just FIRE!" Falco said, before shooting off laser bolts from his pistol.

"We are perfection," the Queen started to say, before the others all opened fire as well, pummeling her.

Shards of her gray armor broke under the weight of the assault, but there was more under that as well. Additionally, upon realizing that the Smashers weren't about to stop attacking and start worshiping, the Queen started to spin around at a pretty impressive speed, preventing them from focusing fire on any one section.

Small cylindrical things popped out of the Queen, her armor sliding away enough to let them come out, but not enough for the Smashers to capitalize on it. The cylinders floated slowly around the egg, growing rapidly.

"Those are the larval Aparoids! Kill them before they grow!" Falco said, turning his fire to the miniature insects.

The others followed his example, blowing several out of the sky, but more kept coming. As the Smashers were distracted by the larvae, the Queen stopped spinning and stretched out six wings that had been furled on her body. Pink energy was being visibly gathered by the Queen.

"Guys! The Queen!" Diddy yelled just in time.

The Queen fired off a large series of twining pink lasers that shot towards Mario, Link and Kirby, but with the prior warning from Diddy they managed to avoid a direct hit, although the small explosion after the attack sent them tumbling. The Queen folded her wings and started spinning again.

"This isn't working. We need something strong," Bario started to say.

"Okeydokey!" Mario said, clasping his hands together.

While the others alternated their fire between the Queen and her larva, Mario started to glow red, and small licks of flames shot out of him. He focused, and the fire slowly gravitated towards his hands. When he felt confident in its power he opened up his hands and fired out his Firestorm, in a brutal wave of flame, which seemed even more powerful since he blasted K. Rool with it.

It vaporized half-a-dozen larva before it even reached the Queen, and once it did it ground her to a halt and shredded the majority of her armor, the fire drilling into her like a physical object.

"Wow," Raichu said.

The Smashers didn't waste any time being impressed though, and opened fire into the red vulnerable spot the Queen had beneath her armor. Falco switched to his machine gun and shot off dozens of bolts in a few seconds, all while the Queen shrieked in agony. With her armor gone, a vaguely insectile shape could be seen.

However she didn't shriek for long. With incredible speed she shot straight up, her armored body obliterating the last larvae that was foolish enough to get in her way. She hit the roof of the egg and…didn't stop. She continued pushing, the incredible force she was using warping the roof of the egg.

"What is she doing?" Samus asked in confusion.

"I don't know!" Falco said, just as shocked.

The others stared at the Queen in confusion, unsure if they should fire or not. A steady rumbling went through the egg…and then the Smashers were pinned to the floor as some unseen force held them down.

"Now what's going on?" Link asked, a twinge of fear in his voice.

"I think…I think we're flying," Falco said, shocked.

"Flying?! To where?" Diddy asked.

"I don't know!"  
The Smashers spent the next several seconds attempting to extricate themselves from the ground…and suddenly found themselves able to. Only problem was that now they couldn't get back on it. They were floating.

"Now what's going on?" Raichu asked.

"I believe we are in space," Meta stated calmly.

"Yeah, I think he's right," Falco said, staring straight ahead.

"Why? Just because we're floating?" Samus asked.

"No, because of that," Falco said, pointing at the wall of the egg.

The others looked…and gasped.

It had become transparent, and stars could be seen. The whole egg was stretching out and becoming some kind of transparent cylinder. Beneath them they could see the planet Corneria rapidly shrinking as their "vessel," for lack of a better word carried them away.

The Queen seemed to attach herself to the roof of the egg/cylinder thing, and as they watched, she too changed, spreading outward and growing a black armor. She soon took up the entire width of the top third of the cylinder, and looked like some kind of black and dark gray circle, the only distinguishing feature on her being four pink nodules and dozens of small spikes. Parts of the Queen that were barely visible beneath the circle were spinning, and four very pointy tentacles waved around the Queen.

A weird gravitational shift made the Smashers feel that instead of looking up at the Queen they were falling down towards her, but since this was space and there was neither up or down, it wasn't true. It was enough to disorient the Smashers enough for the Queen to get off the first attack.

Several Aparoid larvas were spawned from beneath the visible chunk of the Queen and were flung down towards the Smashers.

"Shoot the things she shoots at us…and those pink ball things," Falco said, using his machine gun to lay a fast, if weak, field of fire.

The others followed his example, destroying the larva first and then firing off a few shots at the knobs before shooting more larva. The knobs were hard to hit though as the armored tentacles kept waving around and blocking several of the shots.

Additionally the weird feeling of weightlessness and falling made some of the shots go wide, and it took a while before there was a noticeable effect on the Queen. Once enough damage was done to a knob, it shattered, cracking the pieces of armor around it. Soon enough they had destroyed two of the four…and that's when the Queen became dangerous.

Small brown objects started appearing in addition to the larva, and they moved a lot faster, small streams of energy trailed behind them. Mario shot one with a few firebombs…and it exploded.

"What are those?" Link asked, blowing up another one with a well placed arrow.

"Mines!" Falco said, focusing his fire on several of them.

"Great," Samus said, her Paralyzer barely having enough range to cross half the distance between them and the Queen. She had been reduced to destroying any objects that got past the stream of fire being created by the Smashers.

Falco managed to hit the third knob with enough bolts to destroy it, but a sharp clicking noise alerted him to the fact that his gun was empty. He started to reload, but as more mines and larva started to appear with his fire gone, he switched to his regular pistol. It's individual shots were more powerful, but slower, and the Smashers noticed the small drop in firepower, as the objects inched farther down…

It was Bario, finally, who managed to get past this part of the Queen's defenses, and fortunately before anyone was hurt by anything more than a few sharp cuts from shattered mine pieces. His magic balls managed to curve around the tentacles attempting to protect the last node enough to break it. With a startling crack the armor shattered, and the Queen opened up like some kind of demented flower, revealing a dark hole.

And out of that hole a long serpentine creature flew out, attached deep within. It had a dragonic head, with a thick plate of armor over it, and a large mouth full of teeth. It glared at them, and the Smashers knew the Queen was getting desperate.

"Shoot it!" Falco said.

He needn't have said it, as the others were pouring attacks at the head like mad. Unfortunately for them, not only were the mines and larva still spawning, but the head was moving around very quickly, making it a difficult target…and it was firing back.

The Queen's dragon head opened its mouth and shot off a large series of green energy rings that shot towards the Smashers. They tried to dodge, but the weird gravity/no gravity made it difficult and the attack pinned several of them to the far end of the cylinder.

They had no time to recover though as several mines managed to get through and explode near the Smashers, and it took all they could to stay focused and keep firing at the mines, larva and this new dragon head.

Meta started flying towards the head, his wings allowing him to move through the weightless environment…somehow, stabbing through several mines and moving on before they exploded. Mario swept on his cape and followed Meta's example, and the two managed to reach the head.

Meta Knight landed a trio of painful slashes to the head, on the side of its armor, and Mario slammed the metallic headpiece hard with his hammer. The head whipped into Meta, slamming him into the cylinder wall, and then repeated the action to Mario.

It was about to fire off another blast of energy when a laser bolt entered one eye, and exited through the other.

"Hoo yeah!" Falco said, putting down the sniper rifle, "Take that!"

The head shrieked and began to disintegrate. Several of the mines and pupae seemed to lose power and fell back, slamming into the Queen as the rest of her body followed the example of the dragon head. The explosions temporarily blinded the Smashers.

It wasn't over. Out of the flames a small creature flew out, about six feet long and three tall. Small wings buzzed over its body and a large eye dominated its front. Screeching in anger and shouting something about perfection it fired off a massive blast of orange energy, hitting Falco, Link, Kirby and Raichu.

The remnants of the queen shot forward, determined to finish off the creatures that dared hurt it so, ignoring the grenades Diddy was firing like crazy and the attacks the others were shooting.

The four who were hit lay unmoving. Falco let a sharp breath as his body smoked.

The Queen prepared to fire off another blast when suddenly Mario jumped onto her back. She attempted to fling him off, but he plunged his fist into her soft body and shot out a powerful burst of flame, cooking her from the inside out.

"I am…perfect," the Queen said, before exploding into pink dust.

The dust settled over the Smashers healing their wounds, and several of them stared anxiously at the four who were most wounded.

"I'm fine!" Falco said, getting shakily to his feet, and then finding the movement useless as he started to float away. The others echoed him.

"Well that's a relief," Diddy said, looking at Raichu.

"That was pretty impressive Mario," Link said, looking at the plumber with new respect.

"Thank you very much!" Mario said.

The Smashers started to attempt to float near each other. Raichu opened his mouth to say something, but a startlingly cool blast of air stopped him. The others looked around in confusion…and then Samus noticed that the stars were becoming easier to see.

"The cylinder is dissipating! Bario, make a portal now or we're all going to sucking vacuum!"  
"What? Now?" Bario asked, confused.

"Do what she says!" Falco said, realizing what the situation was, "NOW!"

"I'll try," Bario said nervously, gathering energy.

It was obvious he wasn't going to make it. The cylinder was disintegrating slowly enough that they weren't going to suffer explosive decompression but it was already getting painfully cold, and hard to breathe.

Falco started to say goodbye when he glimpsed something big and gray flying towards them.

A second later they were swept inside some kind of bright tunnel, and the first thing they noticed was gravity as they fell hard to a hard ground.

The second thing they noticed was a sudden influx of breathable air. After taking a few deep breaths they looked around and realized they were in some kind of hangar. A force field had apparently been opened long enough to sweep them in, and then closed to let air back in. As soon as Falco saw the Arwings he knew where they were.

"This is the Great Fox! Alright!"  
"Falco?" a high pitched asked.

The Smashers turned towards the voice to see a humanoid toad and rabbit staring at them from the ships entrance to the hangar.

"Slippy! Peppy! Man is it good to see you guys!" Falco said stepping towards them.

He stopped suddenly when a laser bolt landed an inch in front of his foot. Startled he looked at it, then back at them and realized they were each holding a pistol…and they were aiming them at him.

"Guys…? What?" Falco asked.

"We're arresting you for the kidnap and possible murder of Fox McCloud," Peppy said, "Sorry boy, but we're not going to let you get away with this."  
Falco could only stare in shock.


	45. Of Dreams and Madness

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Forty-Five: Of Dreams and Madness**

"You're accusing me of what?" Falco asked.

"Of kidnap and potential homicide" Slippy said, his squeaky high-pitched voice sounding uncharacteristically threatening, "I always knew you were bad, I just didn't know how bad."

"Why would you think that?" Falco demanded, "Why would I do that to Fox?"

"Slippy here seems to think that you're jealous of his fame and general betterness than you," Peppy said, his wheezing voice having an undertone of anger and strength that Falco hadn't heard for years.

"And…do you believe him?"  
"There's a possibility."

"Whoa, whoa!" Diddy said stepping forward, a pretty brave move considering that Peppy and Slippy were still holding guns pointed at Falco…although a few of the other Smashers were surreptitiously reaching for their own weapons.

"Who's this Falco?" Slippy asked in a harsh voice, "One of your new _friends_?"

"Well, yes," Falco started to say before Slippy spat out a gob of rather large toad goo that landed at Diddy's feet.

"Hey!" Raichu said, stepping forward, before a bolt from Peppy's gun grazed past one of his large ears, stopping him.

"Don't move, rat," Peppy said.

"Fox is dead?" Falco asked, both trying to get a pretty serious question answered, and to divert any attention from his companions, who he figured were probably getting ready to open fire the second another shot was fired…and he wasn't too sure he'd try and stop them.

"You would know, wouldn't you?" Slippy said.

"How would I know? When did this happen?" Falco asked.

"Oh no you don't. Falco, we're not doing this on your terms," Peppy said, one of his furred hands inching towards his chest as he talked, "You're coming with us."  
"Fine," Falco said, stepping forward, as did the others.

"No! Just you Falco!" Slippy said, gesturing with his pistol at the others.

"You think you can stop us?" Bario asked incredulously.

"Maybe not, but if you guys take one step closer I'm hitting this panel," Slippy said, pointing at a slightly sparking, poorly fixed panel right next to the door he and Peppy were standing at, "And you are all going to be breathing the nice coldness of space."  
"You're bluffing," Samus said, although she said it without a lot of confidence.

"No, he's not," Falco said angrily, "I'll go, just don't hurt them."  
"We'll get a confession out of you," Slippy said almost gleefully, moving aside enough to allow Falco to get past them, but as Slippy kept his eyes trained on Falco, Peppy kept his on the others.

After Falco walked past the two he found himself in a narrow hallway. Something bumped into him from behind, and spinning around he gasped in surprise.

"Just to make sure you don't escape, he'll be watching you," Slippy said, letting the robot R.O.B. through.

Before the Smashers could attempt to do anything heroic, R.O.B. slammed a button on the panel which slammed the door Slippy and Peppy were behind shut, separating the Smashers from their companion.

R.O.B. stared at them, his large eyes seeming to express sympathy at their plight, but the second Kirby stepped forward a brilliant laser beam shot from R.O.B.'s eyes, scorching the ground at Kirby's feet, and bouncing up, skimming past his head, leaving a shallow and painless burn that nevertheless made Kirby squeal in fright. The beam dissipated against the force field.

"This is not good," Bario said.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Move bird," Slippy said, prodding Falco along with the barrel of his pistol.

Falco sighed. If he wanted to, he could probably beat the crap out of both of these guys and get the others out of the hangar. The shots hurt, but they weren't very damaging…but if he beat them up he might not be able to find out what happened here. What happened to Fox…

Slippy kept poking Falco until they reached a small room, and after Slippy poked Fox into it he was about three pokes away from bashing the frog's face in, Fox's fate be damned.

Once they were in the room, Falco was roughly shoved into a small chair by Peppy. A small glaring light was on the ceiling, and while it made his anthropomorphic "friends" shrouded in shadow, the light shined in his eyes, forcing him to blink and squint.

"Where were approximately two days ago?" Peppy asked, his voice that of someone straining to remain calm.

"Uh...Kong Island?" Falco said.

"What you're not sure?" Slippy asked disbelievingly.

"Well we've been doing a lot, I don't remember where I was exactly…why? Is that when Fox-?" Falco started to say before a harsh laugh escaped Slippy's lips.

"Ah ha! So you know something happened to him then!"  
"Well, you did say he was kidnapped-" Falco started to say.

"Silence!" Peppy said, "We're not in the mood for your sarcastic comments Falco. We want the truth, and we want it now!"  
"The truth about what?" Falco demanded.

"What did you do with Fox?"  
"What do you think I did?"  
"Why you!" Slippy said, rearing a hand back, as if to slap the bird.

"Stop!" Peppy commanded.

"Why? This scumbag obviously killed Fox, he deserves to pay!"

"We don't know for sure!" Peppy said, "We might as well tell him what we know. At the very least we can make him fill in the blanks."

"Fine," Slippy said, clearly not happy.

"About two days ago," Peppy said to Falco, "We were heading to Corneria because Andross was attacking-"

"Well he's done now," Falco interrupted, "Corneria's been beaten."  
"We know!" Slippy said, "Let him finish!"

"Anyways," Peppy said, a slight edge in his voice, "Slippy was fixing important machinery and I was giving out helpful advice to Fox-"

Falco snorted, knowing the likelihood of either of those scenarios was about zero, but a raised hand from Slippy prevented him from voicing that opinion.

"And Krystal was, well, being most undignified," Peppy said with a huff, "ROB 64 had been broken, so we had been reduced to using the older Rob model."  
"I thought it was R.O.B…" Falco said.

"That takes too long to say. He's Rob," Slippy said, "Now stop interrupting and listen!"

"Fine!"  
"There was a large internal explosion by the hangar. Fox left to investigate, locking down the control room…and never returned. It took us six hours to finally open the doors, and after we did we found the signs of a struggle, and my Arwing was destroyed."

"So Fox was gone?" Falco asked.

"Yes, and it's pretty obvious you did it!" Slippy said, "You had motive, you had means, and you had the opportunity!"

"What? Why would I want…how would I…when…what?" Falco asked.

"It's pretty obvious when you look back," Peppy said, "Clearly you were jealous of Fox for doing better than you at…well…everything. You got your friends there to help capture him, which is the only way you could have done it, since you couldn't beat him in a fight."  
"Okay, not only do I disagree with all of that…but how would I have gotten back to this ship? My Arwing is here!"  
"We haven't figured out how you managed to get here and back, although examination of security tapes reveal some kind of portal was opened," Slippy said.

"Portal?" Falco said, his first thought shooting to Bario, but…no. Impossible, he was with them at the time.

"You know something about portals?" Peppy asked, pouncing on the question like it was gold.

"Wait," Falco said, trying to turn the line of questioning away from the portal, "Since we have security cameras can't you check those to see who kidnapped Fox?"  
"No!" Slippy said "And you know why, we don't have any in the hangar itself, just on the hull of the ship. The kidnapper stayed out of their view, and we glimpsed a portal near the hangar bay."

"Right…to cross-examine battles," Falco muttered.

"Exactly. Whoever kidnapped Fox had to know he was here, which you did, had to want him removed from the Star Fox team, which you do, and had to been able to do it, which I bet you are. You knew those cameras only showed the outside so you made sure to avoid their line of sight. You're going to be locked away for this…at best," Peppy told Falco.

"I don't believe this. Where's Krystal?" Falco asked, hoping to find someone slightly less insane.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"How long do they expect us to wait here?" Link asked angrily.

"I don't know. That robot isn't moving," Samus answered.

Rob had indeed not moved from the spot by the door. He watched the Smashers closely, but despite the powerful laser beam earlier, he had not made any threatening motions or gestures. Link was thinking of leading an attack against the robot, when there was an odd sizzling noise. Rob turned slightly, cocking his head before nodding to himself and smacking the panel by the door…opening it.

"What?" Raichu said.

Rob didn't answer directly. He just rolled out of the room without even a glance back. The Smashers looked at each other for a moment before following him into the narrow hallway, weapons ready.

Rob moved quickly and the Smashers were hard-pressed to keep up as he made many turns. The Great Fox wasn't huge, but it was reasonably big. At every turn they expected to see Falco, or Peppy and Slippy but they didn't.

After thirty seconds of this half-following, half-chasing they caught up to Rob waiting outside a large metal hatch that was firmly closed. Rob reached up and tapped on it four times in a specific order. There was a brief pause, and then a light shuffling as if someone was walking towards the hatch. A series of faint beats could be heard, and then the hatch shot up. Before the others could look inside…someone stepped outside.

It was Krystal, and while her tight jumpsuit clung to her blue fur just as well as it did before, she looked tired and not quite as…foxy as she did before Fox got captured. Once she saw Rob had brought some people though she perked up and gave them an examining look. After a minute she stared at them suspiciously, and they stared back, a few eyes drifting down before shooting back up to her face.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Five voices echoed.

Krystal, Link, Samus, Diddy and Raichu looked at each other for a minute before breaking out into nervous giggles at the somewhat amusing situation. Meta gave Kirby a confused shrug while Bario grinned slightly. Mario looked at them all before letting out a loud woohoo that snapped them back to earth.

"Sorry. I'm Krystal, a member of the Star Fox team," she said, looking over each of the Smashers again…and looking a little too long at Link.

"Sorry about that," Bario said, "We're the Smashers. I'm Bario, this is Link, Samus, Kirby, Mario, Raichu, Meta Knight, and Diddy. Falco was with us, but Peppy and Slippy grabbed him."

"Falco's here?" Krystal asked almost desperately, "And Peppy and Slippy have him?!"  
"Yes," Diddy said, "What's going on?"  
"Oh this is bad…those guys are insane."

"What? How?" Samus asked, having heard of them vaguely through Fox and Falco.

"Well, Slippy I think was always crazy, and Peppy got there with age…oh…oh…they are totally demented!" Krystal almost shouted, wringing her small hands frantically.

"What are they going to do to him?" Link asked.

"If what they've been talking about the last two days is true…they're going to kill him."

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"She's not available right now. The bitch locked us out of the bridge a day and a half ago," Peppy said angrily, the harsh word and tone causing Falco to flinch.

"Do you have anything to say in defense before we carry out your sentence?" Slippy asked.

"Carry out my…what? You haven't proven anything yet!" Falco yelled in disbelief.

"Nothing to say eh?" Peppy said, "Then we hereby sentence you to death."

"What? No! You can't do this!"  
Falco started to get up, his hand reaching to his pistol, but a shot from Slippy's gun caught him in the chest, burning through the suit, the feathers and the top layer of skin. The force knocked him back, sending him toppling over the chair.

"What… is that?" Falco wheezed as Peppy stepped over and pointed his pistol at Falco's face.

"New type of gun. These lasers actually penetrate. Goodbye Falco."

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Krystal stared at the Smashers for a minute before sighing at them.

"Well come on! We gotta get him!"

Before the others could respond in any way she started running. The Smashers looked at each other for a minute before shrugging and following after her. Rob looked around for a minute before rolling into the bridge.

Krystal was faster than Rob, and her head start allowed her to slip ahead of the Smashers. They followed her along a slightly different route. They managed to close the gap a bit, and it helped that she paused briefly to look in some rooms, but she was always a few steps ahead of the rest.

She turned a corner and ran into a room, screaming something about insanity. There was a scuffling noise and the Smashers picked up the pace, screeching around the corner as Slippy ran out of a room and down the hallway.  
Mario shot off a firebomb at him, but it missed, slamming into the wall.

"Mario, you, Kirby and Diddy go after him! The rest of you, with me," Bario said.

The three nodded and charged off. The sound of a scuffle continued, and a trio of shots could be heard. The door had closed after Slippy ran off, but as the remaining Smashers readied their weapons Bario slowly reached for the door.

"Oh come one," Link said, kicking it open and running in.

"Fine," Bario snapped, charging in after Link.

Inside Krystal was on the floor with Peppy while he tried to point his gun at her. There was a slight scorch mark on the side of her jumpsuit where Peppy tried to shoot her when she ran in, and there were a few on the wall where he missed. Falco was clambering to his feet, his left hand over his chest and his right reaching for his gun.

"Stop!" Samus said, as she and the others pointed their weapons at the rolling ball of fur and violence. Raichu started to crackle as he prepared to shock Peppy the second he separated from Krystal.

Krystal lost her focus for a second, having almost forgotten about the others and Peppy took advantage of that to grab her by her neck and hoist her up, his gun aimed at the side of her head. She gasped and tried to twist away, but Peppy pushed the barrel hard into her head and she stopped. He backed into a corner, twitching with both rage and anxiety.

"All of you back off or the fox gets it," Peppy said.

"We're not going to negotiate with you-" Bario said before Peppy jerked the gun towards him and fired off a snap shot, hitting him in the shoulder and knocking him into the wall of the small room, dropping one of his blades and forcing a slight hiss of pain out of the swordsman. Peppy moved the gun back towards Krystal before the others could respond.

"Do it!" Falco said, "He really will shoot her."  
The others grumbled but started to lay their weapons on the ground, and Raichu released the electricity. Peppy grinned…and then frowned.

He let loose a pained gasp and his hand holding the gun jerked away from Krystal. She seized the opportunity and elbowed him in the stomach while spinning and grabbing the gun. She started to aim it at him, when she realized he wasn't resisting. He grabbed his chest…and then collapsed.

"What the?" Raichu said

Falco ran over to him, feeling his neck for a pulse.

"He's…dead," Falco said in disbelief.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Slippy wasn't leading them anywhere; he was really trying to escape. Diddy realized this when several of Slippy's desperate shots came dangerously close. Mario actually had to jump over one, almost slamming his head into the low ceiling.  
They managed to catch up to Slippy just as he ran into a small chamber and slammed the panel, causing a large metal hatch to slam down. There was a viewport and the three could see Slippy in there, laughing as they smacked on the door, unable to reach him.

Slippy wasn't laughing for long though. There was a faint scraping noise and Slippy's eyes bugged out as he stared at the other end of the chamber. Slowly, almost painfully so, the other end opened…into space.

As the vacuum reached in, stealing both air and Slippy's grip he desperately tried to grab onto something in the small area…but there was nothing to grab and he was sent plummeting through the still not fully opened hatch, his body smacking painfully into it and making a sickening cracking noise. There was little likelihood of his survival.

Confused, but not upset, Mario, Kirby and Diddy started to head back to where they separated from the others albeit at a slower pace.

When they got back they found them huddled around Peppy's body, looking surprisingly not surprised.

"What happened to him?" Diddy asked.

"We think it was a heart attack," Samus said, "Apparently this was too much excitement for the guy."

"What happened to Slippy?" Falco asked, "The toad ran out of here as soon as Krystal tackled Peppy.

"He uh…ran into a room…and got sucked into space," Diddy said.

"He ran into the airlock? What an idiot," Krystal said, "I bet Rob opened it up."  
"Why would he do that?" Samus asked.

"Rob hated Slippy. Ever since Slippy destroyed Rob 64, he knew it was just a matter of time until he tried to fix him."

"So uh…what now?" Raichu asked.

"Well, we have some things we should probably talk about. Here, Falco, let me see you really quick," Bario said, moving his glowing hand from his healed wound.

"Huh? Oh, yeah," Falco said, remembering the minor wound he got. He moved towards Bario, and he began healing it.

"So…," Krystal said, looking at Link again, "What exactly brings you all here?" She started to sidle up to him, but Samus stepped in her path and answered quickly.

"We're trying to get out of this world and into the Smashing Realm."

"Oh," Krystal said, a bit of a pout forming on her lips, "He's taken."

"I'm what?" Link said.  
"He's what?" Samus said at the same time.

"Sorry, didn't know. What about you?" Krystal asked Bario as he finished patching up Falco.

"What about me?"  
"Oh come on…a big strong man like you…me," Krystal said, blinking at Bario while he stared blankly back.

"Krystal, back off," Falco said shortly, "You and Fox are still an item remember?"  
"But he's not here **now**," she whined.

"Ugh…fine, Bario whatever you wanted to talk about, let's do it in the mess, I'm hungry," Falco said, heading out of the room while the others followed with varying degrees of excitement.

"There's a mess now?" Raichu asked as Krystal eagerly followed behind Bario.

"It's like a cafeteria Raichu," Diddy said, "Come on."  
The last two to leave were Link and Samus.

"I didn't mean to-" Link said hurriedly.

"And I didn't mean to-" Samus said back.

"So we're not-"

"Of course-"

"Good."  
"Good."

Somewhat relieved the two of them headed…although both felt there was something more to be said, but it was far to awkward to mention.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Falco eagerly opened the door to the "cafeteria" of the ship. It was easily the largest room, and there was not only a large table, which was of course a shiny gray metal, like the rest of the ship, but all kinds of food, ranging from meat products to bread products.

The others started to slowly trickle in, and after seeing Falco grab a large roll of bread and several tubes of some kind of meat, they quickly followed his example, each grabbing something they could at least choke down and then sitting at the table.

Falco gobbled down the meat first, but his elbow bumped his roll away when he was putting the tube down. It ended up by Kirby who gleefully grabbed it after eating an old piece of cake that had somehow been lodged behind some large crates of fruit.

"Hands off my bread!" Falco yelled, grabbing it back from Kirby.

Kirby looked startled, but seeing Mario coming out of some pantries with pasta, he decided to get some more food. Mario cooked his, and anyone else's food with some low-power fire.

Bario ate some food, but he mainly watched the others, his attitude that of someone waiting for something. After the initial gorging slowed down, and several of the Smashers were starting to regret diving into their meals with such fervor, Bario stood up and cleared his throat.

"Alright…after we eat, I would suggest we go to sleep. It's been a while since our last rest, and I think it would serve us good, since I believe this will be the last time we'll get to do it until after we finish this thing."  
The others nodded in agreement, which encouraged Bario enough to continue.

"So now that that is out of the way…what are we going to do?"  
"We're going to beat Andross," Falco blurted out.

"Let's do it," Link said right after that, drawing the surprised attention of the others.

"But you have been opposed to wasting time with fighting these minor villains," Meta said.

"Yeah…well…look, as far as we know, Andross is the last individual guy left," Link said, "I mean Bowser, Mewtwo and Ganondorf are probably all in the Smashing Realm with Master Hand…and I just don't think it's right to leave Falco's home like this."  
"Thanks…Link," Falco said.

"Anyone opposed to this?" Bario asked. Not surprisingly, no one said anything. "Okay then. We need an attack plan."

"Well, Andross is a big floating head in space, so all of your weapons won't do any good," Krystal said, breaking off her staring at Bario long enough to say something.

"Krystal!" Falco said.

"No, she's got a point," Samus said, "This is going to be a battle in space, so most of what we got will be useless."  
"So what will we do then?" Diddy asked.

"Well, we have my Arwing," Falco said.

"The Great Fox has a lot of guns…if I let Rob pilot it, I could have a bunch of you help with the weapons," Krystal said, looking pointedly at Bario.

"Great," Bario said, completely missing her stare, "Is there anything else?"  
"Yes," Samus said, "We can get my ship here."

"Oh yeah, that's still at Diddy's home!" Raichu said.

"Right. Bario, if you open a portal, I can get it to come here."

"Alright…I'll do that tonight. If there's nothing else, I would recommend we get to bed." Bario stated.

"I'll tell Rob to make sure everything around here works," Falco said.

The others nodded. Link started to say something, but as he opened his mouth he realized he didn't know what he had to say. The others started to follow Falco and Krystal as they led them to the various rooms.

With the absence of Fox, Peppy and Slippy there were several empty rooms, but several cots had to be dragged out of storage for all the Smashers, and a few had to double up. Samus, Link and Meta Knight found themselves in one room, Mario, Raichu and Diddy in another, and Kirby and Bario were both in the third one. Krystal and Falco both had their own rooms, but they had a lot to do, so it was several hours after the others fell asleep before they did.

A couple of the Smashers had trouble falling asleep, and several had things they wanted to talk about…but the presence of others in the rooms made it awkward, so they all eventually fell asleep.

_**In a pleasant village…**_

Raichu woke up. He was on a small mat. A quick panicked look around revealed him to be in some kind of small wooden house thing. An eerily familiar one…

He slowly walked out of the hut, noting the few personal possessions in it that he had thought gone forever. Once he was out he covered his eyes from the surprisingly bright and cheerful sun. After a moment he could see again, and what he saw made him freeze in shock.

It was a village. Several other Pokémon were running around, the majority Pichu's and Pikachu's, but there were a few Raichu's and even three pairs of Plusle's and Minuns were cheerfully shocking each other.

Huts, some larger than the one he came out of, some smaller were strewn around on a brilliant meadow that was only a few hundred feet away from a beach. A quick look revealed that this fertile land was actually a small island.  
It was his home. His home…as of a few weeks ago…before Mewtwo came.

Stunned, and starting to feel a creeping sense of joy as the possibility…no, the reality began to hit him. He didn't know if he was given a second chance, or just dreamed everything and he didn't really care.

Raichu started looking around for his fiancée. She had no name, at least not in the sense that any other Pokémon has a name. Most of the ones that aren't adopted, captured, imprisoned or enslaved by humans usually just go by their standard species name, and the intonation of the species name lets others know who exactly was being spoken to or about.

He found her quickly, her thick lashes and curved tail drawing his eye to her female-ness immediately, and a quick look over her fur color proved it was her. Eagerly he started to run towards her, dropping to all fours in anticipation.

A thundering crash forced him to stop. Spinning around, needing to see, but knowing already what it would be, he saw a creature that seemed to be formed out of thin white lines and a blue mesh that created a six foot tall man-shaped body. It was pulverizing a hut.

A second, female shaped one appeared too…from a swirling portal. It immediately began destroying huts and attacking the denizens.

More started coming out of the portal, some wire-framed like these, and others made out of blocky squares with various shapes. The electrical attacks thrown at them by the Pokémon were ineffectual, and they were beaten back. And then…he came.

Mewtwo. He floated out of the portal like some kind of twisted deity, his cold gaze scanning over the village. A trio of Pikachu fired lightning bolts at one of the polygonal creatures, the combined attacks enough to destroy, while several of the wire frames beat a Raichu to death.

"Kill them all. Except for Pikachu and Pichu," Mewtwo said.

The creatures didn't seem to acknowledge his order, and as Mewtwo started to say something else Raichu ran towards his fiancée, who was cowering in the shadow of a hut.

"They're not here?" Mewtwo said, as if to himself, "But then…where would they be?"

Mewtwo started going through the village, occasionally using his psychic powers to fling aside Pokémon who were trying to escape past him, or blast apart huts in his way. A Pichu, a Plusle and Minun and two Raichu's tried to shoot down Mewtwo, but he casually deflected their attacks back and flung small beams of light at them. The beams hit and the Pokemon stared blankly for a second before twitching and jittering as their central nervous systems were temporarily disabled.

Mewtwo continued, pleased by how easily the minions granted to him by M.C. were defeating these Pokémon, but angry that the creatures he was supposed to capture were nowhere to be found. Determined to salvage something out of this failure he searched around and saw a pair of Raichu huddling by one of the standing huts.

Raichu saw Mewtwo turn towards them, and quivering in fear, but also with determination he stood up and between Mewtwo and his fiancée. Mewtwo chuckled at Raichu's show of defiance, and casually batted away his lightning bolt. A powerful psychic throw later and Raichu was in the rubble of a hut, while Mewtwo held his fiancée up telekinetically.

"No," Raichu managed to gasp out, not sure if he was more horrified by what was happening…or by what he knew_ would_ happen.

"Tell me where Pikachu and Pichu are," Mewtwo demanded of his fiancée.

"Why should I…tell…you?" she gasped, her voice becoming raspy as Mewtwo tightened his mental hold around her larynx.

"Because if you don't, you will die."  
"And if I do…they will."

"You can't be sure of that."  
"It's…obvious. You're…a…monster."

"Well, since you are clearly not willing to help," Mewtwo said, raising one of his wizened arms.

"NO!" Raichu said, jumping forward, "I'll tell you where they are! Don't hurt her!"

"You will? How…helpful," Mewtwo said.

"Don't Raichu! Not…for…me," she started to say, before she gasped and coughed.

"Silence! Tell me what I want to know!"

"Agh!" Raichu said, seeing his fiancée struggling, "Fine! They're on the mainland, near the mountains, training for the next tournament. I don't know anything else!"  
"Are you sure?"  
His fiancée started to struggle more desperately. Raichu was blind to the death and devastation around him, he only had eyes for her.

"Yes! Dear god yes! Please, let her go!"  
"You're telling the truth…good," Mewtwo said, and with a casual flick he snapped her neck.

Raichu stared in horror as her body limply fell to the ground, his disbelief no less acute despite the fact he had already experienced this. He ran to her, but after a quick feel he knew she was dead again.

He turned towards Mewtwo, determined to continue the story that had already played out. He would attempt to attack, Mewtwo would casually block it, knock him away and leave, taking his minions with him. Knowing this, Raichu was still going to continue…until Mewtwo suddenly spun around, a look of fear flashing over his face.

Something was emerging from a second portal, and at first Raichu couldn't see what it was until it stepped away from the swirling dark purple vortex…the being was the same color.

It moved slowly towards them, occasionally shooting off spikes of purple energy that vaporized Pokémon and minion alike, ignoring any attempts by them to retaliate. As it crept closer the purple started to fade away near the bottom revealing black boots with a golden rim.  
Raichu realized that the purple creature actually had some kind of energy field around it, a fact that was confirmed as more and more was revealed. It stopped ten feet away from Mewtwo, tentacles' occasionally emerging from it to pierce a creature, and its general shape was revealed. It was near six feet, maybe six three and it was clad in a black armor laced with gold trim, although its face was obscured in shadow.

"Stay back!" Mewtwo said, his voice quivering with fear.

The creature took a step forward and Mewtwo shot out a Shadow Ball at it. The ball wasn't even reflected…it was absorbed. Before Mewtwo could respond, the creature raised a dark gloved hand and shot off a stream of purple energy.

It flowed around Mewtwo. He frantically tried to escape, but his psychic powers were useless as the energy formed a translucent box around Mewtwo…that began to shrink.

Mewtwo screamed as it started to press down, and once the squelching started, Raichu looked away. In seconds it was over though, and he turned back to see the purple energy flowing back towards the being, and all trace of Mewtwo was gone.  
Despite the being having killed the person Raichu hated more than anything, he knew it was not something to be grateful towards…and as it stepped towards Raichu he was sure it meant to do the same to him…but he found himself unable to move.

Its face was still impenetrable, although a pair of eyes with dark purple pupils gleamed menacingly in the shadow. Violet energy streamed along its back, forming a massive pair of dark and terrible wings that expanded outwards, blocking out the sun. As Raichu felt the thing reaching towards him, he heard but one horrible voice cry out one horrible thing.

"I AM KIDAR!"

Raichu woke up with a panicked scream…one that was echoed by two others.


	46. The Brain in Front of the Mastermind

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Forty-Six: The Brain in Front of the Mastermind**

_**Headquarters…**_

Mewtwo, Bowser and Ganondorf were standing around; the only sound that of the faint falcon punch coming from the other room. Bowser started to say something, but lost his train of thought and ended up mumbling nothing to himself.

The machinery by the screen started to make a ringing noise, but Ganondorf started talking as soon as it did, drowning it out.

"Based on the last report from M.C., they're about to attack Andross," Ganondorf said, "And I know I'm not speaking for just myself when I say that they are going to kill him."  
"There's little doubt," Mewtwo said, "After everything they've gone through, Andross will be simple."

"So if we're sure of that, what are we going to do?" Bowser asked.

"We'll do what M.C. wants for now, we'll take his extra flunkies, we'll fight the Smashers, mess with them a bit...," Ganondorf said.

"Mess with them?" Mewtwo asked.

"Oh wait," Bowser said before Ganondorf could answer, "I remember you mentioning something about this…we tell one of them something, whether it's true or not that will confuse them…right?"

"Uh…yes," Ganondorf said, surprised by him actually remembering a conversation, "That's pretty much it. It was M.C.'s idea actually, he wants them to be off balance and not working together properly by the time he faces them."  
"Already uncertain of the outcome?" Mewtwo asked.

"It appears he is. You must admit, the swathe of destruction they've carved through his forces is pretty intimidating," Ganondorf said.

"I'm scared of them," Bowser said.

Ganondorf and Mewtwo looked at Bowser with an amused look on their evil faces.

"I mean…not scared so much as…not afraid of them…because they're not scary," Bowser stuttered.

"Right," Mewtwo said, "But in all seriousness, are we ready for this?"

"I would say so. Remember, our goal is to fight them a bit, let them kill off whatever minions M.C. gives us, and then meet here, and see if we can watch them fight M.C.," Ganondorf said, nodding at the screen, "And then we'll jump in once one of them is finished, and beat the survivors."

"M.C. is going to lose," Mewtwo said, "He may be very powerful, but those nine…"

"But what about the Crystal?" Bowser asked, "Won't he try and use that if he starts to lose?"

"True," Ganondorf said, "But perhaps if we get there before he can use it…Bowser!"  
"What?" Bowser said, startled by the excitement in Ganondorf's voice.

"If we get there…can you still use the Crystal?"  
"What…oh! Oh! Yes! That would give us the edge!" Bowser said, overcome by excitement.

"Guys, I think we're going to be sitting high and mighty at the end of this whole thing," Ganondorf said gleefully.

"Perhaps we should station ourselves now, before M.C. suspects anything," Mewtwo said.

"Good idea," Ganondorf said, stepping towards the portal. He stopped when the machinery kept buzzing, and with a casual flick of his hand he fired off a bolt of dark magic at it, vaporizing the device M.C. used to communicate to them, "Shut up. We're going."

_**The Great Fox…**_

Raichu was shooting off small sparks of electricity while screaming. Falco's voice could be heard echoing back from where he had been sleeping and Mario shot up an instant later, shouting out as well and equally panicked sounding.

Diddy was trapped between two startling sounds and shot up as well, a look of surprise and fear on his face, and in just a few more seconds everybody else was up as well.

Twenty minutes later the nine Smashers and Krystal found themselves in the mess again, with both Raichu and Falco nervously drinking warm beverages while Mario stared blankly into space marked by an occasional shiver.

"What happened?" Bario asked, who had been the first in Falco's room.

"Nightmare…," Falco said.

"A three-way nightmare?" Link asked skeptically, "What was it?"  
"Kidar…," Raichu and Falco muttered at the same time.

The word had a startling effect on the other six Smashers.

"What did you say?" Samus demanded.

"They said Kidar!" Diddy said, "I had a nightmare about that too!"

"As did I," Meta Knight said.

"I had one too, right before Nightmare," Bario said.

"That's when I had it," Samus said, and Kirby nodded, implying that his was at the same time.

"I had mine after we arrived at Kong Island," Meta said.

"Is that why you were acting so weird then?" Diddy asked.

Meta turned and gave Diddy a slow look.

"Yes," he said after a long pause.

"I had a nightmare about Kidar that night on the ship," Link said.

"And I had one when K. Rool knocked me out," Diddy said, still looking a little confused at Meta.

"Wait," Krystal said, "You've all had these nightmares about some guy called Kidar?"  
"It would appear so," Meta said.

"I've had a lot of dreams about guys…but they weren't nightmares," Krystal said, grinning coyly.

"Not now Krystal," Falco said, "This is a big deal…that dream…"

"Fine," Krystal said, pouting and turning around to face the wall.

"Bario!" Link said, "What do you know about this Kidar?"

"What? Why are you asking me?"  
"Don't play dumb…I bet you know something."  
"Link!" Samus said.

"Seriously, you keep blaming him for everything," Diddy said, annoyed

"Diddy is correct. You are always quick to accuse Bario. Do you have any proof?" Meta asked.

"Proof of what?"

"That Bario would know anything more than you about this "Kidar."  
"Well, they both seem to use a lot of purple," Link said.

"What?" Bario said.

"He's right," Falco said, surprise coming over his face, "All your magic stuff is purple, and that Kidar guy killed Andross with those purple tentacles…before…" Falco shuddered.

"And both of you want to kill off all the bad guys," Diddy said.

As more eyes turned towards Bario, he backed up and raised his hands.

"Whoa, whoa! I am not this Kidar guy! Remember, I had a nightmare too!"

"So you claim," Link said.

"Are you hiding something?" Samus asked, her tone guarded.

"No! I am who I am!" Bario said, a bit of desperation creeping into his voice.

"I say we tie him up and shove him in the airlock until we're sure he's not going to kill us in our sleep!" Link said, drawing his sword and stepping towards Bario.

"Stop," Meta Knight said, "Your evidence proves nothing."  
"It gives us enough suspicion to think that Bario is Kidar though," Falco shot back.

"You have yet to prove Kidar has any negative desires towards you. So far all of us have had "nightmares" where Kidar has killed off our greatest enemies, which would seem to indicate he is on our side."  
"Not all of our dreams were like that," Samus said quietly.

"Look, maybe I am Kidar," Bario said.

"What?" Raichu said, "But how…could you?"  
"I don't mean I'm doing it on purpose…maybe my growing magical ability is spilling over into our subconscious, or something."

"And acting out your darkest desires!" Samus said, thinking of her own "Dark" Samus.

"That would be a logical conclusion. There is no advantage for Bario to try and affect our dreams," Meta said, and several of the others nodded in agreement.

"I'm sorry," Falco said, "Didn't mean to accuse you."

"Wait, what?" Link asked, confused, "How did we go from condemning him to apologizing?! He can't be trusted!"

"He's done nothing but help us from day one," Raichu said angrily, "And I for one believe him when he says he has nothing to do with those nightmares, at least not willingly."  
Link started to say something, but he realized the general mood had shifted again towards Bario. Grumbling, he sheathed his sword.

Bario let out a sigh of relief, and then turned towards Samus.

"We can discuss this if you still want to, after we finish off this adventure. For now, I am ready to open the portal to get your ship. We should probably go to the hangar."

"Sounds good to me," Samus said.

She and Bario started to walk out of the mess, after everyone else, including Link, agreed they would follow their plan from yesterday. As Samus exited the room, she snatched a bread roll from the table, chewing on it as she vanished from sight down a corridor.

"I guess it's time for breakfast," Krystal said.

The other Smashers shrugged and dug through the food stores for whatever they could find. As they ate, Krystal and Falco gave them all instructions.

"Alright, I'm going to be piloting my Arwing, Kirby you help Rob with the ships heavy guns. The rest of you go with Krystal and operate the remaining weaponry on the ship."  
"I definitely want Bario and Link to be working with me," Krystal said, flashing a devilish grin.

"Don't listen to her Link," Falco sighed, "She's…wait…where's Link?"

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Samus remembered the way to the hangar, and didn't have a hard time leading Bario to it. Once they got there he turned towards her, his hands already glowing purple.

"Okay, once I open the portal, you call your ship here, and it should arrive in a minute or two, depending on how close I can get the portal to be."

Samus nodded and pulled out a remote from her belt.

Bario frowned in concentration, and then after a few seconds he shot his hands forward, a large violet beam of energy shooting from them. It formed into a big circular portal in the center of the hangar, and Samus hit her remote, calling her ship to her.

Bario watched the portal, a thin tendril of energy connecting him to it. Soon they saw Samus's orange Gunship coming through, slowly and gently.

"You must have opened it close to the ship, that was quick," Samus said excitedly as the two moved out of the way of the ship, letting it land. Once it was fully there, Bario released the energy and the portal vanished.

Her Gunship was large, and it was easily three times the size of the Arwings…if it was much bigger it wouldn't fit inside the Great Fox.

"Why are you so excited?" Bario asked, noticing that Samus was almost trembling with excitement.

"I'm getting my suit back," she said.

Eagerly Samus hit another button on the remote, opening up the door. Almost squealing with glee she ran up into her ship.

Bario shook his head, grinning. His smile quickly faded when he heard the sound of metal scraping against leather. He turned around, slowly…and found Link standing there, with his sword point an inch from Bario's throat.

"Whoa!" Bario said, raising his hands up and taking a step back.

"I don't care what anyone else says," Link snarled, stepping forward, again putting his sword at Bario's throat, "You're a threat!"  
"No! I'm not!" Bario said, a frightened look in his eyes.

"You and Kidar are the same, and you _know _it!"  
"Maybe we are! I didn't mean to hurt anyone if we are! Please, Link!"

"No!" Link said, "I've had a bad feeling about you all this time, and now…now too many things fit together. I'm not going to let you stay here with us, and poison the group with your _lies_!"

With a cry of rage Link shot his sword forward. Bario swung his body to the side and the point of the blade skimmed across his cheek, eliciting a hiss of pain. Link tried to recover his balance from the missed blow, but a sharp blow from Bario into his wrist caused him to drop the sword, and a kick to the knee knocked Link down.

"How dare you?" Link yelled.

"Link please! I respect you as a warrior and a person, but if you keep this up, one of us will die!"  
"Yes! You! You dark magic user!"

"What? Dark magic?" Bario said, turning noticeably pale.

"You think I don't recognize it? That color is the same color Ganondorf uses…violet mixed with black!"

"Link just because it's dark doesn't mean it's evil," Bario said, trying to remain calm.

"So you admit you use dark magic?" Link asked, surprised.

"Yes," Bario said, "But that doesn't mean I'm evil…it's just the kind of magic I'm best at."  
Link looked confused and a little angry, but judging how quickly Bario dodged that attack he wouldn't be someone who would be taken out in a second…and Link honestly wasn't really sure if Bario deserved to die.

"Link," Bario said, "I promise you, all I want to do is to help you and the rest finish off Andross, and all the other bad guys. After that, if you want to talk about me or accuse me of being "evil" then go for it…but until then, let's just do our jobs."

Link stared at Bario for a second, unsure of what exactly to say, and kind of surprised that he wasn't angrier over Link trying to kill him. Before either could say anything, a clanking noise echoed from the Gunship, and turning towards it they saw a fully suited Samus stepping out.

"Link!" Samus said, surprised to see him, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm uh…I came…uh," Link stammered.

"He came to see you off in your ship," Bario said, turning away.

"You did? Well…uh…thanks," Samus said.

"What?" Link said, turning towards Bario, but he was already out the hangar, a faint purple glow on his cheek was all Link saw before Bario turned the corner.

"Link…could you come inside…I want to ask you something," Samus said.

"Sure…," Link said, following Samus as she clanked back into her ship, and regretting that she got her suit back…

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

­­­­­­Bario walked in as the others finished eating. Falco flashed him a grin and stood up.

"Perfect timing! Krystal is going to take you and the others to the weapons room. I'm taking Kirby to the control room with Rob, and then going to the hangar to get my Arwing ready."

"I'm with Krystal?" Bario said.

"Oh yes you are," she said, sidling up to him.

"Just take them to the guns Krystal," Falco told her.

"Fine," Krystal said, grabbing Bario by the arm and half-dragging him out the door.

"Hey! I'm going, I'm going!" He sputtered.

"Do we have to go with her?" Diddy asked.

"Yes. She may be…different, but she knows what she's doing…and she probably won't try to kill you," Falco said.

"Fine," Raichu said, "Let's go."

Diddy, Raichu and Meta finished their bits of breakfast and left the room, although as Raichu passed by the door he shivered. Diddy started to turn towards him, but Raichu nudged him on.

After they left Falco turned to Kirby, who had some cake crumbs on the side of his mouth.

"Heh…you ready?"  
"Poyo!" Kirby said excitedly.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Falco and Kirby left, taking a different path than the others. They walked to the control room, saying nothing although Falco was licking the inside of his mouth to make sure he had all of the food in his stomach.

The room was open, and once in Rob rolled over excitedly. He looked at Kirby, then at Falco and then back at Kirby. Enthusiastically he pushed Kirby towards some buttons. Kirby looked at Falco in confusion, but Rob made a shooing motion. Shrugging helplessly Falco left.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Krystal soon pushed her companions into a large room with multiple consoles and switches, and she made sure to give Bario a nice long stroke-push before stepping in herself.

"What do we do here?" Raichu asked.

"Just sit yourself at one of the stations, and I'll tell you." Krystal said, strolling confidently towards the center of the room.

The Smashers started to sit, some succeeding rather easily, like Mario and Bario, both of whom had bodies well designed for sitting. Raichu and Diddy struggled to sit while keeping their tails from being shoved into the chairs…which was a rather odd problem, since several members of the Star Fox team had tails, so the fact that they designed non-tail designed chairs was…confusing. Eventually they saw Meta Knight just standing at his station and they followed suit.

"Okay, there are eight secondary guns stationed around the front of the Great Fox, besides the large two by the hangar. Those ones are controlled where Rob is, but we get the other ones. There are only six of us, so we'll leave two guns off," Krystal said.

"Can't you make them AI controlled?" Meta asked.

"We could, but the AI is so bad that they would likely target Falco and your friend Samus," Krystal said in a way that seemed like she didn't think that would be too awful.

"Ah," Meta said.

Diddy was only half-listening as he was kind of unsure what the controls meant. There was a large monitor with a cross in the center. The monitor was showing white dots and a glint of gray in the right corner. There was a large joystick on the left of the monitor and a big red button on the side, and he had no idea what any of it did.

"Uh what does this-" Diddy started to say, before Krystal started talking again.

"The controls are simple. The monitors are from cameras attached to one of the guns, so you're seeing space and part of the Great Fox. Don't shoot that," Krystal commanded, her tone darkening slightly, "The joystick lets you move the aiming reticule, and the button fires a laser."  
After saying that she walked over and gleefully plopped herself down in a seat next to Bario, who was looking rather unsure of himself. She carefully picked up his hands and started to guide them to the joystick, but he jumped when she touched him.

"Sorry," he said, "I don't like being touched."  
Krystal started to develop that pouty lip, but before she could start whining at him Raichu asked a question.

"Is that it?"  
"What?" Krystal snarled, before abruptly switching tone and answering in her normal voice, "Oh…yes."

"What do we do now then?" Diddy asked.

"Wait for Rob to take us to Corneria," Krystal answered simply, "That's where Andross is waiting.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"So what do you want?" Link asked, unsure of what answer he was expecting.

"Well…I was hoping you could help me…," Samus said, thanking her suit for hiding the embarrassing blush.

'_Geez_' she berated herself, '_I saved my galaxy from destruction, and here I am, red in front of this…swordsman, who already has a girl. Get a hold of yourself!'_

"Help you what?" Link asked again, struggling to keep his voice from cracking.

'_Oh man…Zelda would be so mad if I ever did anything with Samus…but we never outright said we were together…it's not her decision…what should I do about Samus…what should I do with Samus…AGH! Don't think about that!'_

"Help me with my ship," Samus said, hurriedly moving over to her controls.

"Oh," Link said, not sure if he was relieved or disappointed.

He followed her over to her chair where she sat down. Seeing Link look around awkwardly she hit a switch and a second, smaller chair appeared by some other controls. Link sat down, and Samus explained that these were the guns, giving him a slightly more in-depth tutorial than the last time they were in her ship.  
As she was going over it with them, the Great Fox gave a slight lurch and they looked out the cockpit to see stars moving around, as the ship sped towards Corneria. It wasn't very far away, so this would be a pretty quick trip.  
Before they turned their attention back to the instructions they saw Falco climbing into his Arwing. He gave them a thumbs up, which they hesitantly returned. He then started flipping switches and checking things.

Samus finished her instructions and looked at Link expectedly. He looked back, rather awkwardly considering her helmet obscured her face. After a minute he cleared his throat.

"I uh…I get it. Thanks."  
"Great! So you'll be able to handle the weaponry while I fly?" Samus said.

"Yeah. Yes I will."

With a shuddering lurch, the ship came to an abrupt stop…and a booming voice echoed throughout the ship.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After Falco dropped Kirby off, he moved pretty quickly to the hangar, knowing that it wouldn't take long for them to reach Corneria, where Rob had apparently found Andross. He didn't know if that was really true, considering they were just at Corneria and Andross never attacked…but hey, once one of the Rob's set their mind on something, you weren't changing it.

Falco moved down the gentle slope that started at the control room, or "head" of the Great Fox and led into the main body. He passed several rooms, and as he jogged past one he heard Krystal giving the others directions on how to use to the guns. He was really glad he didn't have to be stuck with her…she may seem sultry and whatnot…but she's really a tease.

She'd chase after the most attractive male she could find, and once she got him completely smitten with her, she'd toss him aside and find someone else. Poor Fox was completely head over heels, and she couldn't care less. If she wasn't so good at her ship duties, Falco would be a lot more vocal about getting rid of her.

He took a step in the hangar and gave a start when he saw the Gunship. Bario was getting really good at the whole portal thing. He started to walk past it when the floor jerked beneath his feet and he stumbled.

Grumbling at the poor quality of the Great Fox's gravity dampening things, he regained his footing and jumped onto his Arwing, flashing an embarrassed thumbs up at Link and Samus, who he could see through the Gunship's wide cockpit, and he hoped they didn't see him almost plant his face in the floor.

Falco then busied himself checking the Arwing and making sure everything worked. Apparently Rob was doing a good job of keeping everything in good condition as his Arwing appeared to be working perfectly, and it turned on quite smoothly.  
The ship stopped suddenly and Falco's face flew forward, cracking his beak rather sharply on the console. Moaning, he pulled back, making sure he didn't break anything…and a terrifyingly familiar voice echoed in his ears.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Rob had shown Kirby how to operate the main guns. They weren't that complicated, considering they couldn't move around. Technically Rob could easily handle them by himself, but Kirby suspected that the robot wanted some company, albeit silent company, but company nonetheless.

Rob pushed a lever and the Great Fox sped towards a bright dot that Kirby figured was Corneria. He didn't have long to get ready though, because just before the dot became big enough to recognizable as a planet, a massive shape appeared in front of the ship so fast that Rob was barely able to stop it before crashing into it.

The size was difficult to determine, since it was in space, but if Kirby had to guess he would have said it was about as big as the Great Fox.

"So this is the group that has been laying waste to M.C.'s forces?" The thing boomed, "I am not impressed."

"M.C.?" Link said over the radio, but no one had a response.

The first thing that came to mind looking at it was "_statue." _It had a vaguely humanoid face, with a series of cylindrical protrusions on either side of its face. The being was entirely gray, with the exception of glowing white eyes and a glowing diamond on its forehead. Nothing on the face moved, and it looked like a mask, or well…a statue.

However the maniacal laughter seemed to be coming from the statue head, so Kirby figured it was Andross. Hey, he's seen weirder.

Rob flipped a switch, releasing the hangars force field. Instantly Samus's Gunship came flying out, closely followed by Falco's Arwing. They separated instantly, spreading out to the right and left of the Great Fox as Rob centered the ship, placing the maximum amount of firepower aimed at Andross.

The huge face slowly floated, its lack of expression implying that it cared not at all for the group organized against it.

"Alright guys," Falco said, his voice coming in over the ships radio, "I'll lead a bombing run on Andross. Aim for the eyes and the diamond!"

Rob beeped a negative at Falco, and made a gesture at Kirby.

"What? Don't tell me what to do!" Falco responded angrily.

He started to fly forward but Kirby pushed his button and a pair of massive beams of energy shot out from the Great Fox's main guns, slamming into Andross's right eye hard enough to spin him halfway around, shattering the eye and scarring the gray stone-like material around it.

"GRAGH!" Andross shrieked, his mouth sliding down like a slab of granite.

"EVASIVE!" Falco shouted, his voice competing with Andross, who somehow could access the ship to ship channels.

Immediately after a huge stream of purple ring-shaped energy erupted from his mouth, skimming past the Great Fox's neck as Rob frantically brought the ship down in a steep dive. The force from the near miss was still enough to cause the ship to shudder.

Andross however didn't seem to care about the Great Fox as he curved the beam so it targeted the rapidly spinning Arwing. Samus's gunship slipped past the beam and Link fired off the ships orange missiles. They slammed into Andross's other eye, shattering it as well.

Andross continued tracking Falco, his beam inching closer and Samus was forced to pull up before Link could continue the assault. The Smashers in the lower part of the Great Fox started firing the secondary guns, the lasers about the strength of Falco's, and they were like needles stinging a boulder.

However they seemed to be irritating the boulder as the beam fizzled out, allowing Falco a chance to get away. Andross then released several missiles trailing yellowish-green gas as they flew towards the Great Fox and the other two ships.

The Smashers used the secondary guns to shoot them down as Rob re-centered the ship, and Samus and Falco easily avoided the missiles after them.

Falco skimmed past Andross's head, firing his lasers at the diamond, and just before pulling up he fired off a red bomb that exploded in a huge blast that destroyed the diamond and cracked Andross some more.

He just laughed again, and his mouth started to drop down again. Rob made a gesture at Kirby again and he punched his button, firing off the massive lasers again. They slammed into the center of Andross's face…and it shattered.

In the secondary weapons room, a central screen showed what the people in the cockpit were seeing, and between that and their individual screens, they actually had a better view of the situation than Rob and Kirby did.

They were trying to keep relatively quiet to allow them to focus on their aim, although Andross's mention of M.C. caused a few surprised mumbling. Once he started attacking though they fell silent.

Several of the missiles came dangerously close, and Mario was forced to shoot down one that Diddy missed, but the battle didn't get really intense until after Andross's face shattered.

Massive chunks of stone or whatever it was made out of exploded outwards, and Samus and Falco put on quite an impressive show of flying ability to avoid those, while the Smashers did their best to shoot the chunks down, but several still got through, leaving small pock-marks in the Great Fox.

Once the storm of rock had faded, they saw that the mask-like thing…actually was a mask, as the actual Andross was considerably scarier.

His large clawed hands were folded over his face, but as he lowered them his leathery face was revealed, and his poisonous eyes showed an incredible intelligence that's sole purpose was controlling and dominating every single thing in his path.

He laughed again and shot his left hand out in a brutal slap. The hand was about as big as Samus's Gunship and the attack sent said ship rolling as Samus struggled to regain control.

Falco fired some shots and at Krystal's direction, the Smashers aimed their shots at Andross's hands, which were clearly the most dangerous things out there.

A punch skimmed past Falco, and cackling something about only Fox being able to defeat him, Andross jabbed his right hand fingers forward, creating a trio of lightning bolts that shot out at his three adversaries.

Falco managed to avoid it entirely, but Samus was still recovering slightly and part of the attack hit her ship, leaving it apparently dead in space, while the third slammed head on into the Great Fox.

The ship listed greatly, and as Andross raised his hand again, Rob spun the ship rapidly…allowing Kirby to fire the guns once more, obliterating Andross's right hand.  
The great monster let out a shriek more of rage than pain and stretched his left hand as from his body as it could get…and slam the main guns on the Great Fox, ignoring the minor stings of the secondary guns and Falco. They bent down terribly with a great wrenching noise, and it spoke of the sturdiness of their construction in that they didn't just snap off.

Raising the hand again he started to fire off those purple ring beams from it again…when several missiles from Samus's seemingly dead ship shot off and destroyed the weakened hand.

Growling Andross opened his mouth wide, clearly not ready to surrender, and with a furious bellow dozens of small asteroids came shooting out of his mouth.  
The Smashers did their best to avoid them, Falco and Samus dodging around like crazy, while the six gunners shot tons down…but several managed to get through, and at the end of the attack the Great Fox was smoking from a dozen wounds, and Falco's ship was listing badly. Samus's was missing an engine; one of the three had been completely destroyed by the shrapnel.

Not letting up Andross started to suck the ships towards his mouth, not a normal or even a seemingly possible, since there is no air in space…but Andross was clearly not normal or even seemingly possible.

Falco fired one of his two remaining bombs. It landed and exploded by one of his hate-filled eyes, but it did nothing to deter Andross from drawing the Smashers towards him.

The gunners poured fire at him, and Link even managed to shoot another missile at him, but they all seemed to account for nothing as they were still drawn closer. Even the Great Fox was powerless, the damaged ship unable to apply the necessary power to escape.

Andross looked about ready to release another asteroid attack, and with the ships this close and already damaged it looked unlikely that they would be able to survive it…but before he could three bombs slammed into Andross, one slipping in his mouth.

The resulting explosions seemed to tear the angry ape apart and his head was lost in the resulting debris.

"What the heck?" Falco said.

"Looks like you're no Fox," a familiar voice said over the radio.

"Wolf?" Falco said in shock, "I thought you ran off!"

"Clearly he didn't bird, you should be thankful," Leon responded.

"Wasn't expecting these guys to show up," Samus said, surprise evident in her voice as well, as the three flew nearby in their Wolfen's.

"Tell me Falco, is that lovely Krystal still on the Great Fox?" Panther purred.

"Panther!" Wolf reprimanded, "Stay focused."

"I'm here," Krystal said excitedly.

"Krystal!" Falco reprimanded, "Don't…do…be…don't do what you are planning on doing!"

Wolf chuckled at Falco's attempt to control Krystal, which quickly caused Falco's relief to see them turn towards irritation.

"Why'd you come back?" Falco asked.

"I figured if I didn't save you and Fox's girl he'd never forgive me. Might even cry, and I can't have that. Won't be any fun to beat a whiny fox," Wolf said, his self-satisfied smirk could be heard even over the radio.

"I don't need you to save me," Falco grumbled.

"Yes you do," Bario said over the radio, "Now let's pay attention…Andross is not dead."

"What?" Several voices cried out at once.

A menacing laughter echoed again.

"I see now why M.C. is so interested in you swordsman…you truly are an interesting foe…but no matter. Now you will all see why I am the true ruler of the Lylat System!"  
With startling violence a massive pink object shot out of the debris left over from what had appeared to be what was left of Andross.

A cry of disgust echoed over the radio as they realized what it was. A massive brain. Two round objects, that appeared to be what was left of the eyes were located near the lower part of the pale wrinkled object, and dozens of tentacles draped beneath it.

Suddenly the eyes shot off, disgustingly attached to the brain by a long stem of tissue. They chased after Leon and Panther, firing minor laser bolts, but Falco nudged his battered ship forward, trying to help Wolf remove the pests from his teammates tail.

The Smashers started to fire at the eyes, but the swirling ships and tiny targets made them stop, fearful of hitting an ally. So they did what Samus was doing…they fired at the brain itself.

The eyes turned out to be rather weak, and the Star Wolf team had no trouble destroying them, but as soon as they were gone Andross started flying around very quickly, trying to ram into the ships, its tentacles whipping around and sending three members of the Star Wolf team tumbling.

The three new ships seemed to be its target, as it ignored the others, and it pressed on despite six more bombs being flung at it from Star Wolf. Blackened and smoking, Andross seemed determined to annihilate all of his opponents, starting with his traitorous assistant.

"You have nothing to fight for Wolf; I destroyed your base and all of your men!" Andross shouted, a tentacle brushing aside Samus's ship as she tried to keep up.

"What? Why?" Wolf demanded, furiously avoiding the brain.

"I suspected you would betray me…it was a cautionary measure. I am the smartest being in the universe after all."  
Falco was all but ignored in his tiny beaten craft…but he still had one bomb left, and seeing a tiny discolored lobe on the back of Andross he was determined to make it count.

While Andross babbled on about how smart he was, Falco managed to position himself. Wolf spotted him, and flew near him. Andross continued pursuit, putting what Falco hoped was his weak spot in a perfect position...and he fired his last bomb.

It hit dead-on, vaporizing the lobe. Andross was only able to let out a pained shriek before exploding in a fashion that made the previous ones look pathetic…and the blast radius was shooting towards the fighters…


	47. They don't have a giant building

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Forty-Seven: At least they don't have a giant building**

The explosion from Andross's death throes was powerful enough to rock the Great Fox, and it sent the other five ships tumbling through space, severely damaged. Amazingly, even Falco's and Samus's damaged ships survived and they all spent the next hour or two limping back, and then trying to figure out how they would fit all the ships in the Great Fox.

Rob, stepping away from his piloting for a bit came upon the rather clever solution of taking apart Slippy's and Peppy's (destroyed) Arwings, and using their pieces to repair the ships, which also provided just enough room for them all to fit in the hangar. Pretty soon all of the Smashers, and their four companions were in the mess again, which was now rather packed. Rob was quite busy fixing ships, a task he was having a rather good time with.

"So Wolf, what will you guys be doing after Rob fixes your ships?" Falco asked.

"You make it sound like a quick job," Wolf growled, "It'll take him at least three days. Considering how damaged your ship was I have no idea how you managed to survive that explosion. Ours were barely hit and they were still almost destroyed."  
"Yeah me neither," Falco said, "But the blast wave seemed to kind of slide past my ship at the last second…"  
"Same with us," Samus said, "I thought maybe my shields kicked in, but they're completely fried now…so yeah…"

"So what will you be doing then?" Krystal asked, sidling up towards Wolf, a hungry gleam in her eye.

Wolf gave her an annoyed glance before pushing her away.

"Back off girl, Panther's the one who's interested."  
"Then I'm not," Krystal huffed, turning away from Panther who had taken an excited step forward.

"To answer your questions though, I think we'll be staying on the Great Fox…at least until Fox gets back," Wolf said to Falco, folding his arms over his chest.

"Why?" Falco asked, surprised to see Wolf thinking about staying.

"Apparently our last base was destroyed. When Fox gets back, we'll figure things out," Wolf said, referring to Andross's last comments.

"Great, glad that's all taken care of," Link said, "Now if you don't mind I think it's time to finish this thing."  
"What? Oh…right, portal," Bario said, "Is there anything anyone wants to do?"

Surprisingly no one said anything, and with a shrug Bario started making the portal, while the other eight tensed up for what was sure to be the final battles. Krystal was still ignoring Panther, and Wolf and Leon were discovering the magic of the food stores.

After a quick glance to make sure no one changed their mind, Bario shot his hand forward, creating a portal for everyone under comparatively calm circumstances…considering the last time he took everyone somewhere a planet was exploding. The familiar vaguely purple portal appeared in the doorway, and without another moment they all jumped through, the last thing they heard was Panther's pained yelp after touching Krystal's shoulder and meeting a swift elbow in his…cat-parts.

_**The Smashing Realm…**_

The portal dumped the Smashers out on what appeared to be a bridge made out of logs over a river. The logs were thick and long, and the overall bridge was about 60 feet long and 25 feet wide. In between the logs was a thick rubbery substance that was apparently holding the logs together. The river banks were what appeared to be typical beach material, although a faint haze made them marginally blurry.

The river was moving very fast, and was only a few feet below the bridge. It was impossible to see how deep it was because the speed of the churning water made it a frothing white, while sharp rocks littered the river.

"Is this the right place?" Falco asked.

"It should be…it looks really strange though," Bario said.

Bario looked at Meta Knight. The masked warrior nodded and flapped over to one of the ends of the bridge, coming back to the ground to touch it. A quick poke confirmed that the bridge had some kind of force-field around the ends. Curious, Diddy poked his hands off the side of the bridge and discovered that there was no field to protect them from falling into the water.

"This doesn't seem like anything," Raichu said, confused.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing? Is this even the right world?" Link asked.

"Yes!" Samus said, surprisingly quickly, "He managed to open a portal right next to my ship, I'm sure he could get us to a world easily enough!"

"Actually, it's not that easy," Bario said, and seeing the intrigued looks from the others he elaborated, "The Smashing Realm isn't a naturally occurring world, it's a created one. Master Hand and his cronies built a series of areas, for lack of a better term, that are loosely connected to each other. It doesn't really follow any sort of normal rules and is entirely unpredictable. I can get us in, but getting us directly to Master Hand and the others…that's a lot harder."

"How do you know that?" Link asked.

"Not really an issue right now. I don't think we're alone…" Bario said, pointing towards Meta Knight who had been walking back.

Jumping up in between Meta and the rest of the Smashers came two bizarre creatures that had apparently been hiding beneath the bridge, clutching to the logs. They were not very big, each one was identical in size and shape and their size was about that of Diddy's. The strange thing was they were perfect copies of Donkey Kong…except a lot smaller. Proportionally they seemed even smaller, since Donkey Kong's limbs didn't really seem to fit these creatures.

"What the heck are those?" Diddy said, horrified to see these creatures impersonating his friend.

"I've seen them before," Samus said, "They're nothing, just something spawned by Master Hand. We'll take care of them quickly."

"Oh really?" A familiar said from behind the Smashers.

Spinning around they saw Ganondorf, standing only a few feet behind them, the vestiges of the portal he had used to reach them vanishing already.

"YOU!" Link cried, jumping forward with his sword.

Ganondorf raised his armored hand, catching the blade with his forearm and then delivered a brutal backhand with his other hand that sent Link's head snapping back. He tried to step forward, but a powerful kick sent Link tumbling off the bridge. Link managed to get his Hookshot out, and fired it off, the point digging into the water-softened wood and dragging a gasping Link back on before he could be swept away by the current.

Before anyone could attempt to attack Ganondorf again, a pained shriek echoed from the other side of the bridge. Spinning around again they saw Meta chopping one of the DK's in half and as the second one punched at him Meta sidestepped before slicing its head off. Both vanished in a puff of dust.

"That was faster than hoped," Ganondorf growled, raising his hand.

Spinning back, an action they were getting rather tired of the Smashers readied their weapons. Samus was the first to fire; her missile was harmlessly deflected by the grinning Ganondorf. Before the others could attack Link leapt up in front of them, sword and shield ready.

"Leave him! He's mine!"

"Link!" Samus said angrily.

"Oh I wouldn't be too upset Samus…you're going to be a little busy yourself," Ganondorf said.

With a terrible roar a massive brown beast tore out of the river and slammed onto the bridge behind the Smashers. All of them except Link turned; his attention was fixed on his foe.

The beast was a dripping wet Donkey Kong, although this one was huge…he easily towered over all of the Smashers.

"Uh…open fire?" Bario said.

They did.

"It's time to finish this Ganondorf," Link said, stepping towards him.

"Oh no Link. Not at all."

"What?" Link stopped, confused.

"This is but a hint of what's to come. Think of it like…a warm-up. We'll have our brief little scuffle and then I'll escape and you'll chase…but you will not catch me."

"We'll see about that!" Link shouted, charging forward again.

Giant Donkey Kong recoiled initially at the flurry of attacks being thrown at him, but after a few seconds he let out a cry of rage and swept one of his massive hands at his attacks, sending them all scattering and Falco and Mario almost into the river.

Both managed to grab onto to the bridge in time and Mario leapt up, firing firebombs into Giant DK's face, blinding him for a second. Bario ran up and slashed at his legs, causing him to stumble, bleeding from the wounds. Raichu shot some bolts of lightning at him, while Kirby kicked and punched…but Giant DK retaliated by grabbing Samus and throwing her off the bridge and then landing a brutal punch on Meta Knight who had been slicing at his arms.

Ganondorf smirked and prepared to dodge Link's predictable attack again…but the swordsman surprised him, thrusting out with his shield instead of the sword. Ganondorf knocked it aside, but the sword came slipping past his guard, opening a cut on his side. Ganondorf dropped to the ground, hoping to sweep Link's legs out from under him but Link jumped over the sweep and then stabbed downwards, an attack which Ganondorf barely dodged.

Link tried to stab again, but Ganondorf's foot shot out again, catching Link in the side of his leg. A few inches lower and he would have shattered Link's knee, but as it was he sent Link falling to the ground with a groan of pain. Ganondorf clambered to his feet.

"Give up Link. You don't stand a chance."

"Wrong!" Link said, trying to regain control of the fight.

"Zelda knew that. That's why she came with me willingly."  
"Don't talk about her…WHAT?" Link screamed.

Ganondorf smiled, knowing that Link was falling for it, even as the "Hero of Time" struggled against the very idea of Zelda doing anything willingly for Ganondorf.

"Oh yes. When I came and she saw my new power, she surrendered herself to me…completely," Ganondorf said, his wry grin implying more than words alone could have expressed.

"YOU LIE!" Link said, trying to stand, but a pulse of energy from Ganondorf knocked him back.

"She's mine now Link. You mean nothing to her…not after she's experienced a man of my power."  
"No…not Zelda," Link said, determined to not take what his foe was saying as truth…but the calm assurance that Ganondorf spoke with eroded the man's confidence…until he thought of something.

"What new power? She's never surrendered to you before!"  
"The power from M.C. of course," Ganondorf said, not realizing the new note of hope in Link's voice, "Why do you even have to ask?"  
"Come on Ganondorf, you expect me to believe that you get a minor power boost and the Princess of Hyrule would submit to you? You got to be joking!"  
"How dare you!" Ganondorf yelled, knowing his control of the situation was sliding.

"And why would she obey anyone who obeys someone else…M.C. was it? Pathetic."

The scorn in Link's voice was enough to set Ganondorf off and with terrifying speed and power Ganondorf slammed his foot into Link's ribs brutally several times until he heard a crack. Laughing at his pain-crippled enemy Ganondorf turned his attention to the others.

Giant Donkey Kong roared at the Smashers and slammed a fist down at Raichu, who rolled away. Samus leapt back towards the stage, pelting the ape with missiles while Falco took a step out of the thing's range and started to aim. Kirby had pulled out his Cutter and his sword and was taking over Meta's job of slicing up the Giant. Bario was knocked aside by a massive hand, but it was apparent that their attacks were taking their toll.

Mario was about to leap towards it when Ganondorf slammed his shoulder into the plumber from behind. Diddy quickly spun and fired a few peanuts at Ganondorf, but the armored warrior laughed them off. He took a step forward…and Falco fired his sniper rifle, the laser puncturing the Giant Donkey Kong cleanly through the left eye. It let out a small whimper before exploding into the welcome pink dust.

"What is this?" Ganondorf cried, seeing the unfamiliar dust.

He didn't wait for a response, knowing he wouldn't get one. Charging forward he grabbed Bario by the face and sent a pulse of dark magic through him before flinging him to the ground, but before he could continue his attack Link sliced at Ganondorf from behind.

"GRAAAGH! What?" Ganondorf demanded, turning to see an apparently unharmed Link standing in front of him, "Impossible! You were barely able to breathe!"

"Don't worry about how impossible it is…just DIE!" Link shouted, stabbing his sword forward.  
Ganondorf was nowhere close to being beaten. He twisted, allowing the sword to skim past his chest armor before punching Link in the chest hard enough to send him flying back, and he flung out several dark magic balls that forced the Smashers to scatter.  
Angrily stomping forward Ganondorf charged his energy into his fist, forming a deep violet aura.

"I don't know how you're moving around like that…but you won't be moving anywhere after this!" Ganondorf yelled at the prone Link, before rearing back…and getting slammed in the back of the head by Mario's double-fisted hammer blow.

The attack was so strong that Ganondorf stumbled and before he could strike back Mario jumped over him and landed a pair of kicks into his chest before yanking out his hammer and swinging it down towards his head

Ganondorf caught the hammer and managed to jerk it away, but Mario let go and Ganondorf was knocked off balance by the sudden weight shift. A trio of flame-powered up punches later and Ganondorf was flying towards the edge of the bridge. The Smashers started to step towards him, but he flung Mario's hammer at them before dropping into the river.

Link was the first to reach the edge, but all that escaped his lips was a strangled no, before he leapt into the river.

The others were shocked by his action…that river could and probably would lead to his death…but when they reached the edge and saw what lay at the bottom they followed suit, all of the Smashers jumping into the portal Ganondorf made to escape.

_  
__**AN: **__Refer to profile page for News._


	48. Mecha Metal Mega Meta Mario Bros!

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Forty-Eight: Mecha Metal Mega Meta Mario Bros.!**

As Link traveled through the portal he tried to avoid thinking about Ganondorf said. He was clearly lying in an attempt to put Link off balance…but when he thought about it, did he really want Zelda...? Did he really care if she wasn't his? Of course he cared if Ganondorf claimed her, he wouldn't want anyone subjected to that…but was Zelda the person he even wanted to be with now? And if she wasn't…who was?

He knew the answer to that question, and he was pretty sure she did too…that wasn't the issue now. What was the issue now was Ganondorf. Link fully understand how Diddy and Raichu felt about Mewtwo and Bowser…he felt the same helpless rage as they did, seeing his most hated foe escape time after time.

This time though, they would do all they could…to finally bring these guys down.

Faster than expected the portal dropped them down. Apparently traveling **in** worlds is faster than traveling **to** worlds.

A quick look around revealed that they were on some kind of floating platform, a faint swirling gray-black fog surrounded it, although the platform itself was easy to see. It was large, not as big as the bridge, but big enough for all of the Smashers to spread out comfortably. Crystalline structures littered the sides, and the center of the platform glowed a faint red, as if something was pulsating beneath the steely surface. Three platforms were elevated above this one, one about 12 feet in the air, and the two on either side were six up.

Ganondorf was nowhere to be found.

"Damn!" Link said, "He must have tricked us somehow! Hey…wait…"

"I recognize this place," Link, Samus and Falco said simultaneously, an action that created a few raised eyebrows.

"You do?" Meta asked.

"This is the Battlefield," Samus said, "In the last tournament a few matches were fought here."

"Interesting," Bario said, "I wonder why we've been led here?"  
As if in answer to his question two decent sized objects slammed into the ground, shooting past the platforms and crashing just a few feet in front of the Smashers. Unfurling rapidly, the creatures gleamed a metallic gray and stood in a ready position. Although they had no facial features, and were a single uniform color, their stance and body shape were familiar enough to determine what they were.

"The Metal Mario Bros.," Link said.

At those words Diddy stole a quick look at Mario, who, for the normally cheerful plumber was looking pretty mad. Clearly he didn't like people using his image.

"More baddies from Master Hand?" Raichu asked.

"Yep," Falco said, "These guys aren't that tough…we'll finish them quickly."

"But not me," a bestial voice growled as a heavy object crashed onto the lower platform behind the Smashers.

Turning they were confronted with Bowser, his wide mouth made even larger by the evil grin he had.

"It's been a while…how have you been?"  
With a cry of rage Diddy threw a grenade at Bowser, before running at him. Surprised, Bowser was hit by the grenade, the force knocking him back and hurting, but he reacted faster than the others would have expected: His claws slashed out as Diddy jumped at him and it was only the chimps quick reflexes that prevented him from being torn apart. As it was he was clawed along the chest, but he didn't let that stop him and he dashed forward again.

The other Smashers moved forward to help their friend, but several fireballs from the Metal Bros. hit them in the back, causing more surprise than pain. Angrily all but Raichu turned around and started to attack the Metal guys, while the mouse jumped up towards Bowser.

Link, Bario and Meta led the charge, the three stabbing at the Metal Mario Bros. and surprisingly…the swords made a sharp clanging noise before bouncing off, leaving four minor scratches in the metal skin. Wordlessly Metal Mario and Luigi landing several powerful punches and kicks on the startled swordsman, knocking them back to the others. Seeing their swords fail, Samus started to do something she's been wanting to do for a while…she started charging her Charge Beam.

"Looks like they've been upgraded," Link grumbled sheathing his sword…and pulling out his bow.  
Mario didn't let the others get a shot off though. Quicker than even they expected he dashed forward and tackled Metal Mario. Metal Luigi started to turn, as if to help, but Link managed to hit it with a bomb arrow, staggering it, but not stopping it. Metal Luigi focused back onto Link and the ones around him…and charged.

Bowser hissed in pain as Raichu slammed him in the chest with a lightning bolt and then scampered out of the way of his furious swipes. Diddy stayed back and pelted him with peanuts. Realizing that staying on the platform was a bad idea, Bowser waited for Raichu to dash forward again before curling into his shell and whirling across the platform and into Raichu, before dropping off it with a loud thunk.

The blow sent Raichu tumbling towards the edge of the stage, the gaping abyss of gray fog the only thing between him and a fall that would never end. He staggered to his feet, clutching his head, dizzy and stumbled forward tripping…towards the edge.

Bowser uncurled out of his shell and slashed out at Diddy again. The monkey danced out of range, and started to reach for a grenade when Bowser surprised him by breathing a jet of fire. Diddy dived out of the way, but the backwash was strong enough to set his fur smoldering, and he quickly moved away from Bowser as the turtle prepared to fire again.

Laughing silently, Bowser sent Diddy scampering away and took a moment to glance at the Smashers fighting the Metals. Yep, all six were there, exchanging blows…wait…wasn't there seven?

Before Bowser could figure out where the seventh one was a hammer caught him beneath the chin and slammed his head back.

Diddy patted the embers off his shirt and fur, and was about to attack Bowser again, when he saw Raichu trip towards the edge. The mouse gave a strangled gasp of surprise as his body hit air instead of ground. He vanished from sight in seconds.

Diddy had a brief moment of indecision. Finally achieve vengeance on the monster that killed his girlfriend…or attempt to save the life of a friend who was probably already doomed? He didn't have to think twice.

Diddy ran for the edge.

Metal Luigi sent Falco tumbling with a metal right hook and was turning towards Link, when Samus caught it in the back with a fully charged shot that jerked it forward, almost falling. Meta and Link charged forward, throwing out a few stabs and pokes but mostly avoiding a counter-attack while Samus charged again. Bario stayed back, one of his swords sheathed and the other held out in front of him while his other hand ran up and down the blade.

Metal Luigi suddenly started spinning, an attack similar to Mario's Tornado, although Luigi normally called his version the Cyclone. Meta and Link tried to block the attack but Metal Luigi managed to batter aside their defenses and knock them away. Link rolled and jumped back up, but before he ran back to battle he glared at Bario.

"You going to help? Or just stand there mumbling?"  
"I am helping," Bario said quietly.

Link shook his head and stepped forward just as Samus fired off a Super Missile that slammed into Metal Luigi. The metallic warrior jerked back, but seemed unperturbed by the large dent it created in his chest. Falco started firing with his machine gun from a safe distance, but a few fireballs sent his way made him dive for cover.

Mario was beating Metal Mario for all he was worth. The initial charge knocked him down hard, making a harsh sound as the metal clanged against the hard floor. Mario landed several powerful blows, not seeming to care about his fists hitting the hard surface of his doppelganger. Surprisingly several dents were appearing where the fists were hitting as Mario's incredible strength started to bend the metal.  
Frantically Metal Mario kicked Mario off of him and fired some fireballs. They hit Mario in the face and he grunted…and retaliated with four firebombs, one's even more powerful than usual.

They were slightly larger and each one hit with enough force to knock Metal Mario back a step. Additionally upon contact with Metal Mario they exploded, sending blazing sparks flying. Metal Mario was knocked to the ground and for a moment Mario thought it might be over…but as he watched Metal Mario stood up again.

He was smoking, and certain parts of him appeared melted as the incredible heat from the attacks did the seemingly impossible…but Metal Mario didn't care about the damage and charged right for Mario, who ran straight towards him as well.

Bowser hissed in pain as his lower jaw clacked into his upper. Recoiling violently a second swing hit him in the soft part of his shell. He rolled with the blow, twisting his body and allowing one of his claw-filled hands to slash out, catching something. Seizing and pulling Bowser ripped the wooden hammer out of Kirby's hands.

Kirby cried out in surprise as Bowser glared at him, then rolled out of the way as Bowser tossed the hammer back at the puffball. Kirby yanked out his Cutter and his sword and ran at Bowser, but a jet of flame made him pull back

Bowser growled at Kirby as he hesitantly circled Bowser, who turned to keep him in sight. He stepped forward and Bowser shot out a ball of fire that narrowly missed him. Kirby circled again and dashed to the right, but stopped suddenly, causing the flame Bowser shot to miss. Surprised Bowser tried to turn back to Kirby just as he threw the Cutter at Bowser.

Bowser stepped to the side, the blade cutting him slightly along the jaw line. Furious Bowser started to belch some flames at Kirby, only to see that he had taken advantage of his momentary distraction to jump at Bowser, sword held high.  
Bowser caught the downward swings on one of his spiky wrist gauntlets and then dealt a powerful punch to Kirby's face. The Cutter blade swung back like a boomerang but it hit harmlessly against Bowser's shell and clattered to the ground.

Diddy reached the edge quickly, the sounds of battle echoing meaninglessly behind him. He knew that at this point the dazed Raichu had probably fallen to an unhelpable fate, but Diddy didn't care.

He didn't quite know what to expect when he reached the edge…perhaps a small dot that was his friend tumbling forever in an endless abyss? But when he peered off the side the last thing he expected to see was Raichu's rather terrified face looking back up at him.

"Diddy?" Raichu said.

On closer inspection Diddy saw that Raichu had luckily landed on one of the crystals jutting out from the side of the stage. It was smooth and slick and even as Diddy watched he saw Raichu start to slide off.

"Don't worry, just come back up," Diddy said, reaching out for Raichu.

Raichu attempted to jump back, but a sudden mental spasm from the blow caused him to lose focus and made him trip and start to fall off the crystal. Diddy leapt off the edge and grabbed him and before they lost too much height Diddy activated his jetpack and they flew back onto the stage.

They paused there a moment, Diddy relieved that he made, at least in his mind, the right decision, and Raichu managed to get balanced again and remove the mental after-effects of being slammed by a massive turtle and sent flying twenty feet.

"You good?" Diddy said, retracting his jetpacks.

"Yeah," Raichu said, giving his head one last shake.

"Then let's get him," Diddy said, running for Bowser, followed closely by Raichu.

Metal Luigi seemed unstoppable and Link and Meta were sent flying again, while Falco and Samus's shots were ineffectual against the tank-like being.

With sudden violence Bario cut his hand on the blade, his blood spilling out over it. It quickly darkened from red to violet and was absorbed into the sword. The gray metal began to shimmer, reflecting the same purple hue it had just acquired from Bario's blood. He moved his already healing hand once more along the sides of the blade. The violet light followed his hand, gathering and darkening in the edge.

Metal Luigi ducked under Samus's missile and grabbed Link, hurling him into Falco. A powerful punch sent Meta flying, the clang of Metal on his mask painful to hear. Samus fired again but Metal Luigi charged through the explosion and rammed her with his shoulder. As he lifted his foot to stomp on her mid-section, Link stumbled to his feet and ran towards them when Bario dashed forward and did one long great slice across Metal Luigi's midsection.

The blade didn't make a sound. The expected clang of metal on metal was not heard and despite the brief flash of purple nothing appeared to have happened. Bario lowered his sword, the violet aura already fading away. Metal Luigi took one long look at Bario though…and then the top half of the metallic minion slid off the bottom, hitting the ground. As soon as it did both halves exploded into gray powder.

Mario and Metal Mario slammed into each other, both reaching out with their powerful hands hoping to grab and _crush_ something on their opponent. They grappled for several seconds, neither able to get a satisfying hold on the other, until Mario whipped out his cape, spinning around Metal Mario.

Mario took advantage of that to slam him in the back with his hammer, sending him skidding towards the edge. He stopped before reaching it and started to step towards Mario again when Mario raised his hands, hammer already placed away. A bright orange glow started to emanate from them and the confused Metal Mario stopped.

From a distance of only a few feet Mario released a small concentrated beam of flame, about the thickness of a standard fireball. Despite its small size though it was clearly very damaging as it burrowed into Metal Mario's face and held him there. Tongues of fire licked out along the sides of the cylindrical beam that wasn't a solid orange. Yellow and gold, red and crimson rippled the surface of the fire and the air around it was drained of all moisture. The faint fog around the beam vanished. Like a force alive the beam continued pouring from Mario's hand while Metal Mario flailed.

After eight seconds Mario lowered his hands, breathing heavily. The beam continued its path into Metal Mario, not fading so much as diving into. When the steam of the charbroiled fog dissipated, Metal Mario could be seen. His face was gone. In fact, most of his head was gone, melted into mush, a shape that was rather off-putting since it still rested on top of a humanoid torso.  
With faint disgust Mario walked over and grabbed his sizzling opponent and with a grunt of effort he hurled him off the edge of the stage. Wiping his hands together to remove any unwanted materials from his pristine gloves, Mario turned to rejoin his companions.

Kirby went rolling, yelping in pain from the punch. Bowser stomped after him but a bolt of lightning hitting the ground near his feet caused him to stop and look to his right, where Diddy and Raichu were standing, Diddy with his peanut popgun in one hand and guitar in the other and Raichu, crackling with electricity. Kirby managed to get to his feet and grab his forgotten hammer, pocketing his sword. The three spread out, surrounding Bowser…who grinned.

"Before we fight, Diddy, would you like to know something?" Bowser asked, turning to face the chimp.

"What?" Diddy hissed.

"The fate of your girl," Bowser said, flames leaking out the sides of his mouth.

Diddy's eyes widened and he gestured to the other two to hold back for a minute.

"What do you know? She's dead…isn't she?" Diddy said.

"Oh no. Everyone thinks she is…but she's imprisoned with the rest of your Smashing friends."  
"Why? Why didn't you just kill her?"

"Why kill a valuable resource? We wanted her," Bowser said, eyes narrowed.

Diddy was willing to believe this…the very idea of Dixie being alive was intoxicating…but something held him back from fully accepting the words. Something was wrong…

"Take me to her!"

"Oh no…no. Not like that. First you must surrender and come with me," Bowser said, "Alone."

"Don't do it!" Raichu said, "He's lying!"

"Shh!" Diddy said harshly, "How can I trust you?"

"You can't," Bowser said gleefully, "That's the point."

While this conversation was going on Bario was being treated with some appraising looks from his companions.

"Didn't know you could do that," Link said, his lack of expression making it difficult to determine whether this had alleviated or deepened his dislike.

"Thanks," Samus said, "That would probably have hurt."

"It was pretty cool!" Falco said excitedly.

"No problem. I just knew we couldn't win easily that way so I tried some magic."

"Woohoo?" Mario said, walking towards them.

"No way…you beat Metal Mario?" Falco said, looking around and not seeing him, "Wow!"

"Now is not a good time to be congratulating ourselves," Meta Knight said, "Bowser is still here."

They turned and saw Bowser engaged in a conversation with Diddy. Quietly they agreed to let him talk, while they surreptitiously circled around the turtle.

"If I can't trust you, why would I risk going with you for what could be a lie?" Diddy demanded.

"That's the question…is the chance of finding the monkey alive worth trusting me? Or would you rather believe she's dead, like everyone else already thinks?"  
Bowser's words were having a serious effect on Diddy. Should he trust the monster who he thought killed Dixie? If he didn't…if he refused to go with him then wasn't he condemning her to death? But he already had thought she was dead…but…but…but Funky said she was alive!  
"Everyone thinks she's dead huh?" Diddy said, seizing an idea.

"Yes, I said that already!" Bowser said angrily. Diddy was showing far too much confidence.

"Sorry Bowser, but I've got good reason to believe that she is alive…and she's not anywhere you can get me to."  
"What?" Bowser roared, "Impossible!"

"Prepare to die, you lying scumbag!" Diddy yelled, jumping towards Bowser.

"GRAAAGH!" Bowser shouted, breathing out a massive plume of fire that knocked Diddy back. Rotating rapidly he continued expelling fire, forcing the ones sneaking up behind him to back off.

The flames grew, blinding temporarily…and when they faded in a few seconds, Bowser was gone, the last remnants of the portal he used to escape disappearing into the void.

"Damn!" Diddy yelled, "Bario, make a portal! After him!"

"Right!"

Before Bario could make a portal the ground shook…and the crystals on the sides of Battlefield ripped off their perches and flew at the Smashers.


	49. Psychic Peril

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Forty-Nine: Psychic Peril**

There were easily over a dozen crystals, some smaller than Diddy and others twice as large as Samus. They were a steely gray color, fainter than that of the platform itself and they blended in slightly with the fog. They were perfectly round except for the top, which tapered into a point. They each tore off the sides of Battlefield and immediately flew at the Smashers.

The crystals were easily avoided though and with a few deft hops, dives and rolls they all shattered harmlessly onto the platform. Clearly it was an attack that relied on the element of surprise, but the distinctive tearing noise they made ruined any chance of that happening. The question was…who unleashed the attack?

That question was answered soon enough when Mewtwo stepped out of a portal on the lower right platform. He glared at them, arms folded.

"You?!" Raichu exclaimed, electricity forming around his head.

"Great, first Ganondorf and Bowser…now you," Falco said, "You guys ever think about taking us on all at once or would that take too much work?"

"We considered it, but decided you weren't worth the effort," Mewtwo said, his mental "voice" expressing the sneer his face could not.

"How dare you show yourself!" Raichu shrieked, a small bolt of uncontrolled electricity slipping out and striking the ground near Samus, who stepped back.

"Calm down! You can't beat him when you let him control you like that!" Samus chastened.

"Yes Raichu, control your emotions…like me," Mewtwo said.

Of course hearing that didn't make Raichu desire to calm down anymore then he wanted to poke his eyes out. If anything his anger increased, and more bolts of lightning started to flicker around him. Realizing that waiting would do them no good, Bario took charge.

"Guys…attack!"  
Before his mouth was even open Raichu was practically flying through the air towards Mewtwo, a bolt of electricity shooting off even faster at Mewtwo. The psychic cat-thing teleported to the second raised platform behind the Smashers and Raichu's attack missed. Raichu spun around after landing on the platform Mewtwo had stood on, his aura of yellowish-blue electricity not faded in the least.

"You'll have to be a lot faster than that to hit me," Mewtwo said, "But maybe you'll have an easier time hitting these guys."

At his words a portal appeared on the top platform and lots of creatures piled out of it. The first batch had about a dozen in them and were an odd group. They were purple in color and blocky in shape, although each shape was different. Their mannerism was familiar to the Smashers and these "Polygons" quickly surrounded them.

They made no threatening action as several more creatures came out of the portal, eight Wireframes, four male and two female, the distinctive creatures that were shaped like humans but appeared to be made entirely out of wires. Six of the Wireframes joined the Polygons, and two jumped over to Mewtwo.

The final things out of the portal were things the Smashers had not seen before. There were four distinct types, a round green one that moved and looked vaguely like Kirby, a yellow one that was like Mario, a blue feminine one that made Link think of Zelda and a tall red one that brought Captain Falcon to mind. They appeared to be made of some kind of shiny metal and rivets of bright color lined their bodies. They had bright balls of energy located in their heads and spiky protrusions at parts of their bodies…head, shoulders, legs. Eight of these Alloys joined the Polygons and Wireframes around the Smashers while four more, one of each type, joined Mewtwo on his platform. Their portal vanished after the last Alloy left.

Raichu remained the only one not surrounded and in fact Mewtwo seemed to be almost mocking him by ignoring his presence. Angered Raichu jumped off his platform and went around the wide circle surrounding his friends.

"Raichu!" Diddy said, peanut popgun aimed at a Polygon that reminded him of Yoshi.

"He's not listening to us…he's too emotional," Bario said, the closest thing to actual anger that any of the Smashers had heard before present in his voice.

"Why aren't they attacking?" Falco demanded, loading his machine gun.

"They're waiting for an order," Meta said.

"Well, let's not wait…attack!" Link said, charging forward, boomerang already flying.

The boomerang clocked a Male Wireframe in the face, and Link's subsequent sword swipe chopped it in half. Link spun with the blow to slice the arm off a short Polygon and grabbed his boomerang out of the air, switching it out for his shield.

The others exploded into action as soon as Link leapt out. Samus and Falco lay down cover fire while the rest of the Smashers joined Link in hand to hand combat.

Honestly though, it wasn't very challenging. The creatures were persistent, but rather weak and flimsy. They had little more than basic punches and kicks and the Smashers had little trouble tearing them apart. Meta managed to skewer a blue Alloy with a single attack and Diddy's guitar caused them to fall apart after a strike or two. This was almost too easy…

Raichu leaped onto the platform. Immediately Mewtwo's six guards jerked towards him. Raichu casually fired off a bolt at the Male Wireframe…a bolt that was about 2 inches in diameter and a brilliant blue-white. It slammed into its chest and the creature jittered a bit…but then recovered and stepped forward. Surprised, Raichu prepared to leap out of the way, but an order from Mewtwo halted them both.

"Leave him. Take care of the rest," Mewtwo said, fixing an appraising eye on Raichu.

His six minions nodded and jumped off to join their losing companions, while Raichu started building up some more electricity.

"Still determined to kill me I take it?" Mewtwo asked.

"You betcha," Raichu growled shooting off a bolt of lightning at Mewtwo.

Mewtwo sighed and raised his hand to deflect it…and his eyes widened in shock after he realized that the attack was far more powerful than he originally anticipated. It slowed when he applied some mental pressure, but it was still continuing towards him. Frantically he pushed harder with his mind, managing to curve the bolt just past him, allowing it to flow harmlessly into the void…and that was when Raichu slammed into Mewtwo's stomach with his Skull Bash ability which allowed the mouse to charge up energy and fly off like a small missile.

Mewtwo was sent back towards the edge of the platform, but Raichu wasn't done yet. Grabbing tightly with his claws he sent several thousand volts of electricity into Mewtwo. A faint pained shriek came from Mewtwo, but he managed to exert enough mental effort to pry the mouse off of him.

Starting to regain control of the situation, Mewtwo held Raichu motionless in front of him, a malicious grin forming again.

"Isn't this familiar?" Mewtwo gloated.

"Painfully familiar," Raichu growled, charging up some electricy.

"Shh…stop," Mewtwo said, "Don't you want to hear about your fiancée?"  
"What?" Raichu said, his stored electricity fading abruptly.

"Yes, I know quite a bit about your lovely little friend," Mewtwo purred.

"Why'd you even mention her?" Raichu demanded, as sparks started to fly, "Do you get some kind of sick pleasure from my pain?"  
"Yes, actually," Mewtwo said matter-of-factly, "But what if I told you I could end that pain?"

"What by killing me?" Raichu asked sarcastically, his tail whipping in anger.

"By not killing her."

When the four Alloys and two Wireframes joined the battle, the Smashers were on the verge of victory. All but three Wireframes had been killed, two females and one male were all that stood and they had taken some damage already. One Polygon still survived, the one based off of Donkey Kong. It had a little bit more durability than its companions and its long reach made approaching it a little difficult. Two original Alloys were alive, a green one and a Captain Falcon one.

Out of the original 26 enemies, only seven remained. So when six more joined in the combatants didn't really care…until those six started to change the outcome of the battle.

The Smashers first noticed a problem when Mario slammed his hammer into a Male Wireframe…and it grunted. Startled he backed off, trying to determine why it didn't shatter like the others. The creature took advantage of that to kick Mario, a seemingly glancing blow…that crashed into him with the force of an iron log and sent him skidding towards the edge.

"We got a problem," Diddy said as Kirby was hit by a similar attack.

"Center!" Bario said, after he managed to land the killing blow on the last Polygon and then moved towards the center of the stage.

The Smashers stopped their individual dueling with their opponents and dashed towards the center, forming a loose circle that proceeded to launch projectiles at the enemies.

The remaining "Weak" enemies were destroyed in the first salvo, but the "Cruel" ones survived easily and powered through the fire being focused at them. Smoking and charred they still had plenty of strength left to send the Smashers scattering. Most were able to duck or roll out of the way and five of the Cruel minions split off to chase a Smasher, but the Female Wireframe managed to shoulder-ram the slower Samus.

Samus found out that the attack was far stronger than she thought it would be…the force of the blow knocked her over twenty feet in the air and she would have plummeted into the abyss if she didn't shoot out her Grappling Hook and latch onto the edge. Angrily she crawled back up to the stage…just as the Female Wireframe kicked at her.

Link, Bario and Meta Knight were packed together, fighting off the Red, Green and Yellow Alloys. Their sword swipes didn't clang off them like they did against the Metal Mario Bros., but they didn't cut through either. The Alloy's were very unyielding and more than once did a sword get stuck, and one of the other two swordsmen had to come to the rescue. Progress was not being made…

Falco and Diddy were trying to fight the Blue Alloy and the Male Wireframe, but their attacks were even less effective. Falco attempted to shoot at the Blue a few times before dashing up and shooting off a powerful snap kick…it was like kicking a wall. It didn't budge and before he could try again it grabbed his leg and threw him up, over and back to the ground, knocking the breath out of him and cracking a rib.

Diddy's peanuts were ineffectual to the Male Wireframe. His speed allowed him to avoid the slow punches and kicks of the creature and in fact he used his alacrity to dive around a punch and slam it in the face with his guitar…which did nothing. The creature grunted before grabbing Diddy and slamming him towards Falco.

"What do mean? Are you just mocking me?" Raichu demanded.

"Oh no," Mewtwo said, wagging a finger, "I'm offering to bring back your loved one."  
"That's impossible!" Raichu said, whipping his tail again, "I know what you're capable of, what abilities you have and resurrection is not one of them!"  
"Are you sure of that?"

"I am!" Raichu snarled, "You may have some telekinetic and psychic powers, but actual _magic _is far beyond you!"

"You got me there," Mewtwo said, still grinning, "But I do know someone who is capable of what you wish."

"Who? Your master?"  
"I have no _master_!" Mewtwo growled, true anger flickering in his voice, "But my superior is able to bring back the dead…how else do you think he brought back so many of your companions fallen foes?"

That stopped Raichu. Mewtwo, Ganondorf and Bowser were clearly working for someone, and that someone wasn't Master Hand…and a lot of the other Smashers did say they thought their opponent dead. Was it true? Did this person, whoever he was, have the power to bring back Raichu's fiancée?

"What do you want?" Raichu demanded, knowing nothing was gained without a price.

"Excellent," Mewtwo said, certain that Raichu was now his, "It's very simple. All I want is for you to…help me kill your friends."

"What! Of course I won't do that!" Raichu said.

"Don't be so quick to decide!" Mewtwo warned, "You barely know these people! Don't you consider the life of your fiancée worth the lives of a handful of fighters you met a few days ago?"

There was a long pause and when Raichu finally answered he couldn't look at Mewtwo's face, his eyes were turned towards the ground.

"Yes…I do."

Samus let go of the edge as the Female Wireframe kicked at her, grabbing on with her other hand and shifting to the right a foot or so. The kick missed, and the creature was knocked off balance. Samus leapt up and then Screw Attacked right into the Wireframe, the energy of the attack ripping open multiple wounds. Samus skimmed along the chest and head area of the Wireframe, coming out of the attack in midair behind it. Spinning around Samus landing a powerful kick to its back, forcing the weakened Wireframe to stagger forwards, teetering by the edge. A missile as Samus landed on the ground, and the creature tumbled into the abyss.

Link managed to slice the Red Alloy's left arm off, but the creature retaliated by kicking him in the stomach. Link rolled with the blow, and fighting back the nausea of having his gut kicked he pulled out his bow and fired a bomb arrow at it, while Bario jumped back from the Yellow Alloy, his sword points starting to glow.

Meta flapped in between all three of the creatures, Link's bomb having no discernible effect. They turned to face Meta, limbs raised but he attacked before they could, blade stabbing the ground. It didn't penetrate Battlefield, but it did leave a dent…and a massive orange tornado rose from the dent.

The tornado spread out rapidly, quickly grabbing the Alloys and spinning them brutally into the air, while Meta remained unharmed in the center of the tornado. As quickly as it came it vanished, and the Alloys fell roughly from a height of about twenty feet. Meta flew away from them as they quickly recovered…and Bario ran towards them.

Hands and swords moving almost inhumanly fast, Bario stabbed repeatedly at the creatures, the mystically charged blades stabbing into, what would be for normal creatures, their vulnerable points. As it was the sheer force of the attack on the weakened Alloys was enough to shred them to pieces, releasing a familiar pink dust. Link frowned as Bario stepped back from the defeated beings, recognizing the attack as a greatly stronger "Super Stab", that Bario had used earlier…he was certainly getting more powerful…

Diddy crashed into Falco, damaging his chest even more.

"Could you maybe…not be thrown into me?" Falco winced.

"I'll try," Diddy gasped.

Seeing the Alloy and Wireframe stomping towards them, Diddy and Falco both pulled out grenades and threw them. The explosives knocked the foes back and left a few holes from shrapnel and explosive power, but they managed to stay on their feet.

"Didn't know you had one of those still!" Diddy said.

"I got a few left…and it looks like I'm going to have use them."

Falco was wrong. A blade suddenly seemed to appear in the Male's back and a second later the owner of it was on the back as well, grabbing the blade out. With an excited poyo, Kirby brought both the Cutter and his sword around on opposite ends of the Frame's neck, slicing its head off.

Before the Blue Alloy could do anything, a pair of white-gloved hands suddenly appeared around her midsection and with a grunt of terrible strength, Mario tore it in half. Both creatures exploded into pink dust.

"Thanks," Falco said, and Mario and Kirby both looked at Falco and shrugged, as if to imply it was no big deal…but the light flush on their cheeks showed that both Mario and Kirby were rather pleased with themselves.

"It's not over yet," Diddy said, pointing towards Mewtwo.

"Excellent!" Mewtwo said again, "So you agree?"  
"Yes," Raichu said, "I'll help you kill them…for her."

Mewtwo started to release his hold on the mouse, when something flashed across Raichu's mind, a surface thought that was quickly repressed. Overcome by sudden suspicion, Mewtwo started to probe.

"Look me in the eyes and say that."  
Raichu slowly raised his head, but before he even saw Mewtwo's face the evil creature let out a gasp of shock.

"You lie! But why?"  
Raichu growled, realizing his ploy failed. He answered while gather electricity.

"Her life is worth just as much as any of theirs…but I won't turn on them on the word of her murderer! She wouldn't want that…and I wouldn't let myself!"  
"You coward!" Mewtwo said, slapping Raichu physically with a hand ensconced in purple energy. He was using his slight skill in shadow/dark magic to strengthen his abilities.

"I'll show you coward!" Raichu shrieked, shooting off a jagged bolt from his cheeks.

Mewtwo casually deflected it…only to be zapped by the _second _bolt fired from Raichu's tail. The electricity quickly traveled through Mewtwo…all he managed to say was a single "Impossible," before he lost his concentration and Raichu dropped to the ground.  
Raichu started to fire again but Mewtwo jerked his hands forward, expelling a ball of Shadow energy, similar in style to Bario's "Magic Balls" that smacked Raichu off the platform. A quick look around revealed his minions defeated, and before the Smashers could regroup and attack, Mewtwo vanished through a portal, closing it a moment before Raichu jumped back onto the platform.

"Damn!" Raichu said, echoing what others had said in similar situations.

"Don't worry," Bario said, hands glowing, "I'm on it!"

He shouldn't have bothered. With a terrible scraping noise the three floating platforms floated down to the edges of Battlefield, stretching and merging with the larger platform. The Smashers stumbled around as the ground beneath them became almost liquid and the gray fog started to dissipate.

The platforms finished merging, creating one giant squarish-rectangular shape, and as the ground stopped writhing it was revealed to be perfectly smooth. Sharp lines crossed the ground, harmless, but as they traveled they changed the color of the platform to a purple and black hue. The center of the stage seemed to thin and visible beneath the glass-like flooring there was the source of the light earlier…a massive red crystal.

When the fog had finished disappearing the Smashers found themselves on the platform whirling through…something, vague flashes of places and people in the horizon whipping closer but then changing, nothing ever getting to them.

"What is this place?" Raichu demanded, having joined his companions near the center.

Several of them knew the answer, but before they could speak a terrible…and terribly familiar voice spoke.

"This…is your Final Destination."  
As the voice laughed a pair of hands floated up from the sides…and moved towards the Smashers.


	50. Final Destination Match

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Fifty: Final Destination Match**

_**Headquarters…**_

Mewtwo flew out of the portal, wheezing slightly. Both Bowser and Ganondorf glanced at him, nursing their respective wounds before turning back towards the screen which was showing Master and Crazy Hand floating towards the Smashers on Final Destination.

"Looks like you survived," Ganondorf said.

"It was closer than I had expected," Mewtwo growled, "They're stronger than before."  
"See! I told you!" Bowser said, pointing at Ganondorf.

"I didn't say I didn't believe you, I just told you to shut up."  
"Fine," Bowser said, pouting slightly.

"It seems like M.C. has revealed himself finally," Mewtwo said, gesturing at the screen.

"Not quite," Ganondorf said, "He's still using the Hands to test them, but he will be forced to come out soon."  
"He doesn't know we escaped before they killed us, does he?" Bowser asked worriedly.

"I doubt it. He seems focused on the nine, especially on the swordsman," Mewtwo said.

"I don't get it," Bowser said, "Why is that Blargio guy so important to him?"  
"If we knew that, we might have known enough to stand against M.C. before," Ganondorf said, "As it is now, this is our best bet."

There was a crashing noise in the room where the prisoners were being held, followed by a whoop of excruciating manliness.

"What was that?" Mewtwo asked.

"Guess the cages didn't hold," Ganondorf said, grinning, "Don't worry about it."

He raised his hand and shot off a small bolt of dark energy at the door leading to the prison, fusing the lock.

"Will that hold?" Bowser asked.

"For as long as we're here at least. Now quiet…the battle is beginning," Ganondorf said, turning back to the screen.

_**The Prison…**_

"Falcon Punch!"  
"Falcon! Cut it out!" Fox yelled.

"FALCON PAUNCH!"

The front quarter of the cage shattered.

"YESZ!"

"What did I _just_…what?!"

Everyone stared at Falcon, who was looking quite pleased with himself. With an arrogant air he strutted out of the cage, grinning at the others.

"Falcon!" Luigi said, the first one to gather his wits enough to speak, "You…you did it!"

"Told you!" Falcon said gleefully, "Now to escape!" Falcon ran towards the door.

"Hey wait!" Roy shouted, "You can't leave us here!"  
"PIKA!"

Game & Watch stuck his hand through the bars and rang his bell, trying to get Falcon's attention.

Falcon reached the door…just as the energy ball hit it. He tried opening it, and then punching it, but after a minute he realized he wasn't going to open it by himself. Turning back he smiled sheepishly.

"I uh…was definitely coming back."  
"Sure, sure," Zelda said, shaking her head, "Just help us get out."  
"Ah!" Marth said, eyes wide in shock.

"What?" Luigi asked.

"Look at Game & Watch!" he said, pointing at the 2-D fighter.

They turned to him.

"What about…oh!" Fox said.

G&W stared at them, confused.

"Your hand!" Peach said.

Game and Watch looked down…and jerked his hand back out of the bars. He stared at it for a second before sticking it back through the slats. Nothing happened to it.  
"The field's gone," Fox said.

G&W hesitantly stepped between the bars and ended up on the other side, nothing stopping him.

"Donkey happy! Free soon!"  
"This is great!" Luigi said, "Now it'll only be a matter of time before we all get out of these things!"

"So what?" Ness asked, "The door is still closed, and even if we get past that we don't know what else is out there. We're probably trapped here forever."  
"Shut up," Marth said harshly, drawing his blade, "Everyone else…start smashing your cages."

_**Final Destination…**_

The Hands circled the Smashers, and the Smashers formed a circle, each one aiming their weapons at the Hands.

"Is this it? Are these the last guys?" Link asked, "Because if this is our final battle…I'm not impressed."

"That voice wasn't Master Hand Link," Samus said, "Something's up."  
"Someone's missing," Bario stated.

"What? Who?" Falco asked.

"If we beat these guys…we'll find out."

The Hands attacked first: They jerked far back, towards the edge of the stage…and then came flying back in a clapping motion. The Smashers were ready though, and they dived off in different directions, four of them ending up on one side of the hands and five on the other.

"Fire!" Bario said at the same time as Link.

The Smashers opened fire, hitting the Hands multiple times as they got their bearings back from their missed attack. The Hands reacted faster than expected, flying off to the edges of the stage, opposite each other. The Smashers attempted to keep their projectiles flying, but the Hands slowly rotated near the edge, tracing a giant circle and several of the attacks missed at that range.

Arching out their fingers the Hands shot off five thin blue lasers each from their fingertips. Wiggling the appendages caused the beams to move along the platform in an erratic pattern and the Smashers were forced to dodge the beams. Falco and Mario were hit by them and they seared a small part of their clothing and flesh but were otherwise surprisingly weak.

After about eight seconds the attack stopped…apparently the Hands couldn't keep it up. Immediately after they stopped dodging the Smashers pummeled the Hands with more projectiles, but the Hands seemed indifferent, unleashing another attack. Master Hand floated towards the Smashers, palm facing forward and Crazy Hand flew towards it as a fist. The attack fortunately didn't squish any Smashers in between the Hands like they were hoping, but Samus and Kirby were hit glancing blows by Crazy Hand and had to struggle to get back on their feet.

The Hands pulled back from each other and shook rapidly…apparently slamming into each other like that hurt. The Smashers took advantage of their distraction by hitting them with several more attacks, Link switching over to Bomb Arrows and Diddy tossing out a few orange grenades.

Surprisingly after those attacks hit there were secondary explosions from each of the Hands and they flew back, writhing, a deep groan echoing. Still twitching they tumbled off the edges and towards oblivion.

"What? Is that it?" Diddy asked, confused.

"I don't believe it," Falco said, stepping forward, "I'm going to go look."

Falco started to walk towards the edge, but Bario jerked his arm in front of Falco's chest, stopping him suddenly.

"Believe me, you're going to want to stay here."  
"Why?"

"Trust me."

Bario's tone was final, and his face was tenser than it had ever been before. Gulping Falco nodded and stepped back, loading his machine gun with his last clip. Samus decided now would be a good time to store up a charge shot, so she began to power up her laser.

"I'm not going to ask how you know there's more to come," Link said.

"Thank you," Bario said quickly.

"But!" Link responded harshly, "After this, you have a lot of explaining to do!"  
"I'm looking forward to it," Bario said, grinning slightly.

Samus finished charging her laser…just as that terribly familiar voice laughed again…and that's when things got hairy.

The Hands shot up from the edge, and so did several other things, but they were flying overhead far too fast to be easily identifiable. The laughing continued and the Smashers tried to remain calm, but the massive indiscernible objects hurtling over them were quite disconcerting. Soon however the objects started to slow, and two dark ones slammed into the ground near the edge, causing all of the Smashers to turn towards them.

They were shoes. Big black dress shoes, very shiny with dark laces and a gaping blackness in the space where the feet should have entered the shoes. Each shoe was about the size of one of the Hands, and as soon as the shoes were visible the Smashers started to suspect.

The second thing that positioned itself over the shoes was harder to make out, but after the shock wore off they saw it was essentially a male torso with no arms or legs, garbed in a black suit with a white tie. The size of this thing was staggering…it was proportional to the size of a torso to its hand, and since the hands were several times larger than the Smashers…yeah, truly a monster to behold.

The Hands floated into place then, situating themselves as if there were arms in between them and the torso, just like the torso was positioned as if there were legs. The behemoth towered over the Smashers, and all of them were quite able to guess what the final thing would be.

Their guesses were correct, but that didn't stop them from being horrified by it when it finally appeared.

It floated up from behind the torso, having remained hidden beneath the stage. The Smashers caught a glimpse of it as it rose, between the feet and the bottom of the body. All they were sure of seeing at that point was something beyond description…and yet by describing it they could attempt to escape some of the horror.

The first part that was clearly visible as it began to rise over the body was a large glossy black top hat, and beneath the rather bizarre headgear was a head. This head was enormous, just like the rest of this insane creature, but it had a certain…alive-ness to it that the rest of it lacked. All of the "pieces" seemed like tools, but this head was clearly sentient and malevolent.

Its skin was a pasty gray and while the scalp was hairless, the head had a thick white beard that trailed beneath it. Large square white teeth were visible in its hideous grin and its startlingly empty and pupil-less bloodshot eyes burned with a fierce ancient hunger. Rounding out this impossibly evil and sickening creature was a monocle of crystal clear glass over the left eye, which when combined with the rest of the overall ensemble gave the being a feeling of attempting to conceal his brutality and evil behind a veneer of high class.

"Hello everybody," he said in that booming yet familiar voice, "It is a pleasure to see all of you at last."

"What is this?" Samus demanded, "What in Zebes is this thing?"

"This is the Mastermind behind the Hands," Bario said quietly, "The fiend that directs the tournaments from the shadows.

"Wait," Falco said, attempting to mask his fear behind bravado, "If this is the rest of the body for Master and Crazy Hand…then is that Sane Foot and Servant Foot?"

"And the Terrible Torso?" Diddy asked, gulping nervously while saying it, the mockery rather diminished behind his quavering voice.

"AH HA HA HA HA!" the being laughed, the sound so loud it almost pushed the Smashers back, "Servant Foot! Terrible Torso! Never had I heard such hilarity! It was worth keeping you alive just to hear that! AH HA HA HA HA!"

As he laughed he threw his head back, and clasped his Hands around his belly, an ordinary gesture made disturbing by his lack of connecting body parts.

"Glad we amused you," Link growled, "Feel like introducing yourself?"

The being seemed to lean forward then, the laugh stopping quickly, his eyes piercing Link and causing the courageous swordsman to step back nervously…not even Ganondorf at the height of his power ever exuded this much malice and power.

"Introduce myself? Do you expect a song and dance from me?"  
He laughed again, but now the undercurrent of evil tainted the humor, and it was obvious he was mocking the Smashers.

"Do you have a name? Or should we just call you the Hostile Head?" Samus asked, gulping nervously.

"I do have a name," the creature said coldly, "But to speak it here would have untold consequences on your pitiful plane of existence…you may call me Mr. Cranium."

"M.C." Diddy said nervously, "Now we know…who the…boss is."

Mr. Cranium looked at them like a young boy looking at the ants he was magnifying, and when he spoke again his words chilled the Smashers.

"I have your companions from the previous tournament. They fought back and now suffer in imprisonment. You may share in their fate, but I would much prefer it if you joined me willingly."

He spoke to all of them, but his gaze rested on Bario. Not noticing, Link frowned, and then his eyes widened in shock.

"Sweet Farore…I know you!"

"You do?" Mr. Cranium said in mock surprise, "That's fantastic!"

"You know him?" Diddy asked in shock.

"He's the Announcer!"  
There was a moment of silent shock, but it was quickly dissipated by Samus.

"The Announcer? What do…OH!"

"What are you talking about?" Raichu asked, but Falco was catching on as well.

"He's…he's the one who…no? Really?" Falco said in half-belief.

"I don't get it…what's going on?" Diddy asked.

"He's the one who announced the fights, counted down, stated our names, our victories and our losses," Samus said in a stunned tone, "I just…can't believe this monster was the one watching us the entire time."

"Of course I was watching you," Mr. Cranium said, his floating body parts moving around slowly in ways normally attached parts couldn't, "The tournaments were run and designed by me, for me."

"Why?" Link asked, "Why did you start the tournaments?"

"Was it some kind of sick source of amusement for you?"Raichu demanded, starting to get mad that his friends were dragged into a tournament by this monster.

"I'll admit entertainment played a part…but don't call it sick. You all volunteered for the tournaments, had a good time…and you wouldn't be here now, together if it wasn't for them."

"So? You gathered together the heroes of more than a dozen different worlds to watch them fight…for fun?" Samus asked.

"Ah...close, close," Mr. Cranium said, wagging a finger and smiling slightly, "You almost had it…'The heroes of more than a dozen different worlds.'"

The others stared at M.C. in confusion, although Bario still bore a look of fury and violet licked the edges of his body.

"Oh…you don't get it, do you?" M.C. said.

"Get what?" Diddy asked.

"What better way to find out who would best fill the ranks of your army than by holding a contest for the greatest warriors to duke it out?"

"You're kidding!" Samus said, "We would never join your army!"

Several of the others gave affirmations of agreement.

"Don't be so quick to decide…do you even know what I want you for?"

"We do not," Meta Knight answered coolly, an odd note of anger evident near the edges of his words, "Please…inform us."

"It's quite simple actually. I want you to join my army of minions, so that I may extend my reach across every universe," M.C. stated grandly, but at the yells of anger and disagreement he frowned at them and continued, "Of course I shall grant you control over your respective worlds. I was going to split it between you, the "Heroes" and your adversaries, but since you killed all of them that makes it rather easier for me."

"Killed all of them? We didn't kill _all _of them," Falco said, puzzled, "Bowser, Ganondorf and Mewtwo escaped."  
"What?!" M.C. yelled, his foul breath blasting across the Smashers, "Those cowards…how dare they run. After this is finished, I will take care of them."

"But what of our enemies? Why…how, are so many that were defeated forever back?" Link asked, confused anger in his tone.

"I am the most powerful being ever to exist. The how is simple: I possess the power needed to resurrect mighty beings that have fallen in battle. It's easy really…their souls cry out for a second chance already, so all I really have to do is give them back their body. As for the why, well it's obvious. More minions to fill my army! Like you all will soon be!"

"SILENCE!" Bario commanded, finally speaking, his sword pointed at M.C., "Now tell us, where are you keeping the other Smashers?"

Violet energy curled around the sword and emanated from his body, and the fire in his voice was just as hot. Startled by this the others looked at Bario, then back at M.C. who was glaring at Bario.

"You dare speak to me that way?" he declared angrily, "After you join my forces that will have to change."  
"Answer the question!" Bario said again.

"They're out of reach!" M.C. said, furious that the Smashers were not immediately bending to his will, "They're trapped in a nexus between dimensions, and you will never find them…unless you work for me."  
"I doubt that," Bario said with a slight grin, "Guys…we don't need to hear this anymore. Get him."

"Get him? Are you crazy! We need him to tell us where the others are!" Link said, "If he doesn't tell us, we might never find them!"

"I said GET HIM!" Bario yelled, shooting a massive beam of dark energy at Mr. Cranium from the sword.

Quicker than expected Master Hand jerked in front of the attack, but the force was higher than originally thought and the Hand went flying past the area where the neck would be, scorched and smoking.

"It's a fight you want, eh? I thought you learned your lesson last time boy," Mister Cranium said to Bario, "No matter. The result will be the same…only this time you're all going to be staying with me!"

"What is he talking-" Samus started to say, before Crazy Hand fired six missiles at the Smashers.

They dodged, but the explosive backlash sent several of them tumbling. With a deep and low laugh Mister Cranium stepped forward, the singed Master Hand returning to his side. He raised both Hands, firing off the lasers again. The Smashers dodged and twisted around the attacks, and Samus managed to find an opening. She combined her charged shot with several missiles to create a Super Missile that crashed into the Terrible Torso.  
Mr. Cranium grunted and stopped attacking. The Smashers paused, a few panting slightly. Before it could start up again, Link turned angrily towards Bario.

"What are you, stupid? We could have gotten more information out of him!"  
"Any words that came from that mouth are tainted…whatever he tells us will only serve him, not us."

"Harsh words," Mr. Cranium said, "But not as harsh as the ones you used to say. It saddens me to see you continue to resist."  
There was a long pause, and Bario continued to glare at Mr. Cranium.

"Do you two know each other?" Raichu asked.

Startled, Bario looked at Raichu, but Mr. Cranium was the first to respond.

"Oh yes…we go way back. Perhaps we could share some of our history with the others?"  
"NO!" Bario said, raising the hand without the sword, a glowing ball forming in it.

"Then the battle must continue," Mr. Cranium said, with far too much glee.

Instead of an attack coming from the Hands however, his shoes opened up the assault. The front part of the shoes slid back and from the opening came a missile, one from each shoe.

These were not like the missiles that came from the Hands when they formed the gun position…no, these were huge. Each missile was about twice the size of Samus, and although they were mostly orange, bright streaks of red cut across them. They also appeared to be homing, since they immediately targeted a Smasher.

One flew towards Bario, the second towards Falco. They were slow but steady and when Bario released the ball of energy at the one flying at him, it slammed into it, knocking the missile slightly off course. It started to correct itself, but he hit it again, it crashed into the ground…and exploded.

The explosion was massive, far bigger than Bario thought it would be, and he, Samus and Kirby were all knocked back by the blast wave as it seared a dent into the stage.

Seeing what happened there, Falco was reluctant to make his missile explode so he dashed away a bit…but the missile followed persistently. Realizing he would get only one chance at this he grabbed his Reflector, turned it on and kicked it towards the missile. They met and for a second it seemed the missile might overpower the Reflector…but it managed to turn the missile away before retracting on the string it was attached to back to Falco's belt.

The missile was undaunted though and even as the Reflector returned it started to make a long slow turn. Cursing Falco aimed his machine gun at it when a bolt of lightning struck it from the side, sizzling out its circuitry and causing it to drop, apparently harmless, to the ground. Falco turned towards his rescuer.

"Thanks Raichu!"  
"No problem!"

Before Mr. Cranium could unleash another attack, Mario jumped over to the missile and hefted it up. With a grunt of effort he spun around quickly and then launched the missile at Mr. Cranium. Immediately after throwing the missile he fired off a firebomb behind it. The pair traveled extremely fast and M.C. didn't have a chance of avoiding it.

The missile slammed into M.C.'s cheek, the firebomb hitting at nearly the same moment, causing the seemingly fried missile to explode, hiding M.C.'s face in smoke and even some pale blue blood. He let out a low scream of pain, but before any of the others could capitalize on this, things turned really ugly.

Both feet stomped the ground, causing large pointy black spikes to pop out around the rubber soles, forming a spike line all the way around both shoes. The Hands both began punching and jabbing at the Smashers ferociously, and the suit on the torso billowed threateningly.

While the Smashers dodged and evaded the Hands, the smoke cleared, revealing M.C's face…and the deeply unpleasant crater on the cheek that oozed blue blood. His gaze was one of terrifying fury, and with a cry of rage that shook everyone to their bones…he unleashed his true wrath.

The six body parts stopped pretending to be a part of a normal body and spread out around the stage, each one targeting a Smasher or two…and each one of those body parts brought new meaning to the word "Really Freakin' weird." Wait...that's not right. The word was pain. Yes, pain.

The feet stomped towards Meta and Samus, shooting off spikes that were replaced by more spikes and the two did their best to avoid being hit by the massive pointy cones. Meta Knight quickly took to the air to evade them, while Samus was reduced to shooting them down with missiles, a tactic that proved surprisingly effective.

The Hands tackled Kirby, Diddy and Raichu, unleashing their typical hand like attacks, poking, drilling, slapping, dropping explosives from their finger tips…normal hand-related techniques. Kirby had some experience fighting the Hands before, so he was able to dodge their attacks relatively easily and land a few blows of his own. The other two spent a lot more time dodging and getting hit by glancing blows, than retaliating…but at least they were holding their own.

Bario quickly ran to meet Mr. Cranium himself, so that left the Terrible Torso with Mario, Link and Falco, all three veteran Smashers, Mario and Link more veteran than Falco. At first it seemed like a relatively simple opponent…the Torso would slam into the ground slowly, attempting to squish them, they would dodge, and retaliate with their projectiles. That tactic however had to be changed…because the Torso's billowing suit was not just there for dramatic effect.

After another failed squishing attempt the Torso took to the air…and the tie jabbed out, stretching surprisingly far before skewering the ground right next to Mario. It retracted, the hole it made already repairing itself.

Of course it did, Final Destination was a self-repairing stage…it would have to be, after all that fighting on it. The question commonly asked and never answered was what gave it the power needed to repair itself so quickly?

It wasn't the first time Link wondered that, but he honestly didn't have time to dwell on it as the tie shot out again, this time at him. He jumped out of the way, and before the tie could retract again he lunged forward and sliced the tip off, the soft cloth of the tie giving way easily. The tie jerked back, and while the Torso made no noise, it managed to imply significant pain…but it still had a few things left in its bag of tricks.

When Bario ran to Mr. Cranium, the head floated down to just a few feet above him, out of reach of his sword. Before Bario could use any of his magic to make the distance irrelevant, the head spoke, his voice in a surprisingly quiet whisper.

"So Bario, you do know that you are the true prize here?"

"I know," Bario growled, "And I don't care."

"You think you and your friends can defeat me?" M.C. said in a mocking tone, "Please."

"I got close by myself once…and I am stronger now."

"You fool…you never had a chance against me. But, since you are so confident in your friend's abilities, let's make things a bit more interesting." Cranium's wound still oozed, but the flow had subsided and it didn't look half as bad as it had at first.

"What do you mean?"

"I've been watching your journey, and I've seen what everyone is capable of…They do fine in little organized groups, individual battles…but let's see what happens when I bend the unspoken rules a bit."

At his last word the Hands suddenly flew forward, flying right over Diddy's head…and slamming Samus hard into the ground. She let out a strangled gasp of surprise, so fixated was she on the shoe that the attack seemed to come out of nowhere.

The Torso's suit suddenly flapped open, the buttons tearing off…and flying around towards the Smashers, sharp as razors. Link barely blocked one with his shield and Raichu had to use his nearly forgotten Quick Attack ability to avoid getting sliced in half by the deadly buttons which buried themselves into the stage before dissipating, like they were never there to begin with.

As Meta Knight flew over the spikes of the shoes, the laces suddenly undid themselves and shot up, jabbing and stabbing at him. He frantically dodged, slicing and shooting energy balls while the shoes fired their spikes at the other Smashers.

"Stop it!" Bario commanded, "Face me!"  
"Sorry '_Bario_', but I have some Smashers to smash," M.C. said, emphasizing Bario's name before floating out of reach and towards the Smashers. Bario flung a ball of dark energy at M.C., but the fiend didn't even notice.

While the others were busy dealing with the rest of the parts, M.C. went relatively unnoticed…until he fired a blue laser beam from his monocled eye, the monocle catching and focusing the beam until it was incredibly powerful…it pierced the ground next to Diddy, and began to move towards him, clearly intending to slice him in half.

The monkey cartwheeled away, and the laser fizzled out, but M.C. just laughed and fired again and again, a quicker, weaker laser bolt coming out of the other eye, and in just a few moments the Smashers were sporting a dozen small wounds from near misses and glancing hits, and the other body parts were landing their blows as well. Despite all this, Mr. Cranium and his body parts seemed none the weaker than since the beginning of the battle, even the wound on his cheek had all but healed by now. Something had to give.

Fortunately for the good guys, it gave in their favor. During the battle something was niggling at the back of Link's mind, having started when Bario launched the initial attack, and in between his blocking and dodging he worked at it. Seeing the bolts firing from the maniacal head's eyes suddenly caused something to click in his head. An old ability of his, one he hadn't used in years due to how it caused him to tap into powers he wasn't entirely comfortable with…but now he realized it was probably his best bet.

Rolling and dodging he managed to slip around the back of M.C., avoiding the majority of the flak and buying himself the time he needed to concentrate. Fortunately for him, Bario charged forward at around the same time, slicing at the closer body parts and firing off balls of energy, so that, combined with the others doing their part, prevented Mister Cranium from noticing his temporary disappearance.

He kneeled, focusing on his piece of his Triforce, he brought it out of its "dormant" state, the state where he mostly used it to increase his physical abilities slightly, and give him vague "readings" of people and into an "active state." Moving the piece into a more active state, the state that Ganondorf usually had his, allowed Link to use it for more powerful offensive measures. He tried this before and didn't like it; the feeling of using something so powerful was deeply unnerving.

He felt the slight burning sensation on the back of his hand as the Triforce symbol there lit up, indicating that it was being used. Focusing on the Triforce of Courage he could feel the energy gathering. Directing it towards his sword, the Master Sword, it took a second or two for it feel complete. Gulping slightly, Link stood up, the blade glowing in the grim lighting of Final Destination…and Link called out to Mister Cranium.

"Hey Fathead! What's wrong? Scared of me?"

Startled and confused by the words, M.C. slowly turned around, his lasers stopping for a second. As soon as he saw Link he frowned and started charging his monocle powered eye laser…and that was when Link stabbed his sword forward, a multi-colored beam of energy shooting out.

The beam crashed into the center of the monocle, too fast for M.C. to evade and powerful enough to shatter the glass, shards of which flew into his eye. Letting out a deep screech of pain he slammed his eye shut, digging the shards in deeper…but not before a piece of the laser skimmed out.

It wasn't aimed at Link, which probably saved his life…the attack he just used significantly weakened him and he almost toppled. It took all of his strength to hold onto his sword…and when the laser hit it caused him to lose even that. It tore through his skin and scraped along the side of his pelvis. He let out a faint pained noise before collapsing, a smoking hole in his side.

"LINK!" Samus yelled in horror, shooting off another Super Missile at one of the feet.

"We don't have time to worry about him, Samus!" Bario said harshly.

"Bario!" Diddy said, leaping over Crazy Hand and pelting it with peanuts.

"He's right," Meta said, evading the Terrible Torso's ramming attacks and retaliating with projectiles and stabs, "We need to concentrate on this!"

"You dare injure me?" M.C. roared at Link, shards of his monocle poking through his lid…from what little of the eye they could see it looked shredded. The beam, the shards and even some of the power from the laser had all rebounded and essentially destroyed the eye…the pain had to be terrible. Yet, with the exception of the initial pained cry, M.C. seemed to find the disfigurement more of an annoyance than anything else…and that frightened the Smashers.

He began to float down towards Link, gnashing his teeth as if intending to tear him in two. Link just groaned a bit and tried to move, but as soon as he strained the muscles in his side he paled and stopped.

"This guy is nuts!" Falco said, firing off the last of his machine gun rounds at M.C.

The bolts did little more than anger the head, but that was enough to cause him to turn away from Link.

"I see now that I was perhaps a bit hasty in my offer," M.C. hissed, "Maybe I should prove to you all why I am the most powerful being in this, and all other universes!"

The five other parts of M.C. floated back, creating a loose wall to prevent any of the Smashers, with the exception of Link who was now apparently forgotten off by the edge, from escaping. With a smooth noise the top of the top hat that M.C. wore slid back. With a terrible grating a massive ball of flame erupted from the gaping hole and shot into the air, seeming to hang there for a few brief seconds before plummeting down.

"SCATTER!" Bario commanded.

The Smashers did, but they didn't get far before the ball crashed into where they had all been standing, the resulting shockwave knocking them all off their feet. Laughing, M.C. shot off another one, which again knocked them down after just getting back up, and scorching the back of Meta and Raichu. As he prepared a third one, Diddy leapt up.

"Stay down…and cover your ears!"

He pulled out his guitar and began strumming on it, hitting the strings in the precise sequence needed to unleash its musical power. The others followed his orders, and M.C. frowned at him.

"No…I know what that does! Stop!"

The parts started to move forward, but the star-shaped shockwave was already bursting out of the guitar, knocking the pieces back. M.C. floated down as the wave was moving at a slight angle, trying to avoid it but he couldn't entirely…it slammed into his top hat, slicing it in half and knocking it off his head. He growled as his shiny bald pate was revealed to the world and the pieces rolled off of Final Destination and into the abyss.

Diddy's guitar started to smoke, and after a quick glance at it, Diddy put it away and pulled out his single gun, the other seven Smashers standing up.

M.C. looked furious, but undeterred and with an evil grin he opened his mouth wide…and his teeth flew out. Yes. Twenty plus of his large square white teeth shot out his mouth like missiles and flew at the Smashers. The unorthodox attack startled them but throughout the adventure they were getting used to expecting the unexpected, so they reacted rather quickly, dodging and shooting them out of the sky. When the teeth hit something they exploded, sending pointy shrapnel flying all over the place.

While the Smashers evaded the attack, M.C.'s teeth grew back, and flashed a dark smirk at them.

"Fine…if you continue to resist then I shall have to start exercising deadly force."  
"_Start_?" Samus yelled in shock, "What do you call what happened to Link?"  
"What?" Mr. Cranium said, looking at Link, "He's alive…for now."

He jerked his head towards the Smashers and the body parts started to move forward…

"STOP!"

The pieces halted, M.C. listening to the one person he really cared about…Bario.

"Yes?"

"I'm willing to talk…if you're willing to not kill them."

"That is preferable…what do you have to say?"  
"Not here!" Bario said, looking at the others, "Over there!"

M.C. looked where Bario gestured, near the edge opposite Link and a good distance away from the others.

"Still trying to keep some secrets eh?" M.C. said.

Bario just started walking towards the area he pointed out ignoring the response. M.C. moved his Hands and Torso in a gesture implying a shrug. The pieces moved slightly closer to the Smashers and M.C. floated towards Bario…while Samus gave Bario's back a rather suspicious look.

"What's going on here?" Falco said, throwing away his now useless machine gun and pulling out his trusty pistol, "Why is he talking to him?"

"Which him do you mean?" Raichu asked.

"Either one…it shouldn't be happening," Samus said, the cold tone in her voice startling the others, "I think I'm starting to see what Link was talking about…Bario is way too familiar with that monster. If we all survive this, he's got a lot of explaining to do."

"So, decided to retract your erroneous ways?" M.C. asked once they were out of earshot.

"Perhaps I am…but you can't have me be what you want."

"What, do you want partnership? Because that's not going to happen. I, and only I will rule."

"I don't want to work _with _you," Bario said, spitting out the word with like it was a poison, "But I do think some kind of agreement can be reached."  
"The only agreement I'll make is your complete subservience. Anything else will end in a very painful death for you…and with you gone it will be easy for me to capture the others. My ultimate plan for them will take longer without you…but it will be done. Already I hear some of the captured Smashers are breaking, and I haven't even done anything to them!"  
"You can't seriously expect to conquer any world, let alone all of them with thirty fighters, no matter how strong," Bario said angrily, "What you propose is madness and wrong."  
"You're not one to lecture **me** on right and wrong," Mister Cranium said, "But you are right. I had more, but you and your friends certainly stopped that…but do you really believe I only have minions in seven worlds? I have been busy…you'd be amazed how many deceased villains are just _dying _for the chance to get revenge on their murderers."  
Bario paled at this.

"How many…how many worlds?"  
"Oh…I'd say about six more or so…my memory is fading after all this time. After all, I remember you having a different name…perhaps I am confused. Should I ask your new friends if they know it?"

"Don't you dare!" Bario said, pointing his sword at M.C.

"So you do care for them…my you have changed. Well, this is getting us nowhere. Do you have anything more to add or shall I just kill you all and be done with it?"

"I'll serve you," Bario said, lowering the sword and drawing an excited smile from M.C., "On one condition."

The smile faltered, "What is it?"

"Tell me where you are keeping the other Smashers."

"Not until you submit."  
"You know that once I do I can't go back!"

"Yes, that's why if you promise to serve me, as you are meant to, I shall tell you…most of my secrets."

Bario shook his head, fist tightening around the blade.

"I refuse to serve you, or anyone. If you won't tell me willingly…then I'll force it out of you!"

He charged forward, attempting to stab M.C. but the beard whipped into life, the hairs wrapping around his arms and pinning them to his side.

"You'll regret doing that…now you won't even get the pleasure of your own free will!"

"Bario!" Diddy said, seeing him get tied up.

"I do not care what he may have done or about his past with that head…we must help him," Meta said.

"Agreed," said Samus, "After this…he can tell us everything."

They started to move towards the struggling Bario, but at their motion the pieces of Mister Cranium moved forward, the Hand's flexing, the Feet twitching and the Torso…existing…it doesn't really move much.

"We better hope we can get these guys out of the way fast," Raichu said, charging up some electricity.

"Gwa ha ha ha!" M.C. said, tightening his beard, "Do you surrender or should I start tearing off extremities?"

"Er…er," Bario growled, thrashing wildly, but losing ground every second.

M.C. laughed again and turned his gaze away from Bario to see the Smashers throwing out their best at the pieces, Samus shooting off missiles constantly, Diddy throwing out grenades and leaping around the attacks while pelting them with peanuts, Kirby and Meta flying and running around, slicing them up with their blades, Falco utilizing similar tactics as Diddy, dashing and pelting with laser shots, and Mario blasting off firebombs while hammering the kittens out of things. After Mario got smacked hard by the Torso, Raichu loosed a charged lightning bolt at it, strong enough to halt it briefly. M.C. was planning on joining the fight, having already considered Bario beaten. Big mistake.

While Cranium was preoccupied Bario took the opportunity to relax and focus…and just when M.C. was at his most distracted Bario unleashed a massive store of energy, enough to blow away the hair strands holding him and rock M.C. in the air.

"What the?"

Before he could attempt to regain control of Bario the swordsman had both swords out and, powered up by his violet magic, was slicing and dicing at his face. Crying out in true pain, more so then even when his eye was pierced he flew back, out of reach…but it wasn't enough. Bario raised his blades again, shooting off energy, and M.C. knew the time had come.

The Hands made a great sweeping motion, forcing the Smashers out of the center of the stage. The Feet and Torso made several more attacks, shooting off spikes and charging while the Hands floated over the glowing center of Final Destination.

While M.C. frantically dodged the attacks and attempted to retaliate, a large red crystal slowly emerged from the solid center, as if it were water. Sparing a glance over there Bario grimaced.

"No you don't!"

Sheathing his blades he extended his hands forward, expending a large chunk of his power to shoot off a ball of energy that shot past M.C. Relieved that it missed him, Cranium almost missed it turning into a huge portal behind him…but when he felt the powerful tugging and the hissing wind, he knew.

"NOOOOOO!" M.C. said, resisting, the Feet and Torso turning away from the Smashers and towards Bario, but Mario leapt towards them and shot off a Firestorm from the side that sent the vastly weakened pieces tumbling and burning, while the Hands frantically worked to remove the Crystal, but realizing that letting Mr. Cranium get it would be a bad thing, the Smashers were attacking the Hands.

On the other side of the stage the exit portal opened, and M.C. was sucked inexorably into the one behind him.

"Why? Why?" M.C. demanded, straining with all of his considerable might.

"Why what?!" Bario demanded, pushing more power into the sucking vacuum.

"Why have you turned your back on your purpose? Why do you choose to stand with them over me?"  
At that Bario laughed, coldly and bitterly.

"Turned my back? You truly are a fool. I still intend to fulfill my destiny…I just don't need you to do it!"

M.C.'s eyes widened.

"You will pay for this!" he yelled as his the top of his head was sucked into the portal.

"I think not."  
The top of the cranium emerged from the other portal…and after enough was through Bario closed the portals…slicing Mister Cranium's skull in two.

There was a brief moment of shock throughout the entire area, as everyone could feel the faint rush of a massively evil force fading away. Bario was bent double by the extremely large amount of energy he had expended, but he still had the presence of mind to smile. The head pieces slowly drifted downwards, the faint gray of brain barely visible before the head, and all the other pieces of the body exploded outward into pink dust.

The dust had an immediate rejuvenating effect on everybody. All the injuries and fatigue faded away as M.C's power was used to heal, rather than destroy. Bario stood straight again, vitality restored and it didn't take long for Link to clamber to his feet, the hole in his side vanishing. He grabbed his weapons and walked to the others, relieved that the hole in his side hadn't hit a more vital spot.

Bario shook his head and walked to the others as well, who were all gathered around the crystal that was still half-embedded in the ground. When he reached them Samus was the first to speak, cutting right to business.

"Bario…it looks like all of this is over, and I think it's high time you told us how you know that head…you've been hiding a lot."

There were faint murmurs of agreement, but no one seemed like they wanted to press him too hard. Even Link looked a little hesitant. Bario thought for a second, eyes closed, but seemed to come upon a satisfactory answer.

"You're right. I've been keeping too much hidden from you all, and now, with Mr. Cranium finally dead," Bario said the last part with a pleased smile, "There really isn't a reason to keep those secrets anymore."  
"So?" Link pressed, "What are they?"

"Well I'll start with the simplest first, and one you may already have suspected," Bario paused, "You see…I am Kidar."


	51. The Showdown

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Fifty-One: The Showdown**

"You're Kidar?" Link said, more surprised than he would have thought, "But after all that…and now…no warning…what?"

Bario…or Kidar, as he appeared to be now, merely nodded his head sagely.

"Wait…what does that even mean?" Samus asked, "So you're Kidar…does that mean you're the cause of our nightmares?"  
Kidar winced a bit at that and raised a hand as angry looks appeared in the other's eyes.

"Yes…but I assure you, I had a good reason!"

"And what reason would that be?" Raichu asked, hurt that someone he considered a friend caused such emotional pain to him.

"It was-"

"You'll have to save it for another time boy," a familiar voice said.

The Smashers turned, startled and shocked as Ganondorf casually stepped out of a portal near the edge of the stage.

"Resistance is futile," Mewtwo said, stepping out of another one on the other side of the Smashers.

"Yeah, I don't know what M.C. wanted with Brawlio but it doesn't matter now," Bowser said with glee stepping out of a third and final portal, forming a loose triangle around the Smashers.

"We'll talk about this later," Meta said, raising his sword.

"He's right," Link said, "It's interesting Bar-I mean Kidar, how something always shows up at the last second, preventing you from explaining…anything."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Kidar said innocently, drawing both blades, "Form a circle around the crystal…we don't want them to get it."  
"As if you could stop us!" Ganondorf said, laughing slightly.

"You should be considerably weakened after battling Mister Cranium," Mewtwo said, "It should be a simple task for us to defeat you."  
"Ha!" Diddy said, "Looks like you guys didn't do your research!"

Those words sparked a puzzled look in Bowser's eye, a look that was quite at home in that particular spot.

"What's that mean?"

"It means we're completely fresh and ready for a fight with you guys," Samus said, gun pointed at Bowser, "Compared to Cranium you guys shouldn't stand a chance."  
"What?" Mewtwo said, startled, "This is impossible! The closeness of your overall power to M.C.'s should have prevented you all from _even_ surviving. At the very least when we saw the last part of the battle Link was down, practically dead!"

"Guess you left before the final act," Link said cockily, sword hefted to one shoulder, "Cause I feel fine."

Ganondorf frowned at Link and folded his massive arms across his chest.

"I know you're tough…but you're not invincible. You had a hole right through your stomach. I can't even imagine you being able to stand, let alone fight. What is this?"

"Guess you didn't pay attention to the pink dust at our last fight Ganondorf," Raichu said, "It shows up after we kill a baddy and heals us…and Cranium had plenty to heal us with."

"Is this true Ganondorf?" Mewtwo demanded.

"I didn't…I can't…HOW?!" Ganondorf demanded, furious.

"I didn't sign up for **this**!" Bowser said, backing away from the Smashers, "Fighting them now would be suicide…come on Ganondorf! They _killed _Cranium! What chance do we have?"  
Ganondorf fumed silently to himself for a moment while the Smashers basked in the feeling of **them **terrorizing their opponents for once…but the moment didn't last long.

"We can do this!" Ganondorf said, face taut with concentration, "All we need…is to get that crystal first!"  
"What?" Kidar said, "No!"

The violet haired swordsman sheathed the blade in his right hand and spun around reaching for the crystal…but his hand suddenly stopped.

"Ganondorf…if you have anything planned, do it now," Mewtwo said, straining to hold Kidar.

"Gotcha," Ganondorf said with a grin, a dark aura surrounding his fists.

"No!" Raichu shouted, running towards Mewtwo, but the psychic raised a hand and held him back.

Ganondorf then charged forward. Samus fired multiple missiles at him, but he raised his hand and they exploded mere inches in front of him as he continued to move. Link ran forward to meet him, and Falco moved to help but Mewtwo managed to grab the bird with his mental powers and trap him in place.

"Bowser! Hurry, I can't hold the three of them for long," Mewtwo said, his voice sounding more strained than before.

Bowser didn't even respond, he was already moving, Diddy, Mario and Kirby ran towards him, while Meta flew towards Ganondorf, just over Link's head.

Link reached Ganondorf before the others reached Bowser and he kept his charge going by using a mighty horizontal slash that should have ripped Ganondorf open. Instead Ganondorf caught the blade with his armored…arms, and with a deft twist of his body backhanded Link before punching Meta in the mask as he dove down. Both swordsmen went down and before they could get up, Ganondorf was charging past them, shooting off a ball of energy at Samus.

Bowser ran forward, more like a tank than a creature. Diddy reached him first and leapt up, smacking Bowser's face with both fists and his tail. The turtle king moved his head with the blow, lessening their impact and then smacked Diddy down with a claw slap. Mario jumped forward, fire jumping from his hands but Bowser charged through the flame, knocking Mario aside. Kirby hesitated then, a moment too long as flames erupted from Bowser's mouth, sending the pink puffball flying, scorched silly.

Ganondorf rolled under another missile and dived for Samus. She side-stepped and clocked him in the side of the head with her arm cannon, but he ignored the blow. His left hand shot out and grabbed her by the midsection, and demonstrating some rather impressive strength he threw her at Link who was just starting to get up. The pair fell over in a tangle of bodies.

Ganondorf reached for the crystal, grinning at an immobile Kidar, who strained and made a strangled noise of rage.

"Looks like it's going to be over for you soon," Ganondorf said, grabbing the crystal and pulling it slowly out. Bowser reached them, but spun and threw out a few balls of flame to keep his pursuers back before turning around again. The crystal did not slide out of the platform as easily as it had when M.C. was retrieving it. Rather than slipping through like water, it was inching out as if trapped in mud. Ganondorf strained and Bowser watched hungrily, but shooting off enough flames to keep the others back for the few seconds it took for Ganondorf to heave the partially revealed crystal out of its prison.

As Ganondorf chucked the crystal to a practically drooling Bowser a sharp cold pain flashed, originating from his hand. Looking at it he saw a blade raise again as Kidar sluggishly fought the control from Mewtwo to do more than a mere scrape. Ganondorf kicked the man down as Bowser started to absorb the crystal, lightning flaring up from both him and the red ruby, one bolt, seemingly by chance, striking out and knocking a charging Mario down.

Ganondorf turned angrily towards Mewtwo, clutching his bleeding hand.

"I thought you could hold them!"  
"I could," Mewtwo hissed, a bead of sweat popping out on his head, "I held all of them before…they're different."

"This is great! Great!" Bowser said, the crystal fading into his rippling and expanding body, "It's been too long!"

Mewtwo released his hold on Falco and Raichu, and stopped trying to restrain Kidar. The three stumbled, the ease of movement startling. Link, Samus and Meta climbed to their feet, weapons raised, as did Mario, Kirby and Diddy. The nine Smashers and even Ganondorf and Mewtwo stopped and stared as a laughing Bowser became a beast that only the Evil King Ganon could match…Giga Bowser.

His horns lengthened and curved, snout stretched out and became more wolfish and his tail stretched and became an armored segmented extension of his body. He grew hunched as muscle piled on muscle and as he grew to ten, fifteen, twenty…twenty-five feet his breath leaked out of his massive jaws in a thick fog. He leaned back and roared in sheer primal joy. The demon had been unleashed.

"GWA HA HA HA! Now you will DIE!" Giga roared, stomping towards Mario.

"Stop!" Ganondorf ordered, "We should take this opportunity to talk!"

"WHAT?!" Giga said, small trails of flame leaking out of his mouth, the same color of the fire appearing in Mario's hand.

"This was not part of the plan," Mewtwo said, looking at a crackling Raichu.

"I know," Ganondorf said, grinning at Link and Samus who were holding back, "But perhaps we could reach a more beneficial agreement."

"Don't even think about it Ganondorf," Kidar said, clambering to his feet and yanking out his other sword, "Cranium already tried to make a deal with us."

"Yes but we have information he wasn't willing to share," Ganondorf said slyly.

"What?" Link demanded.

"We know where the other Smashers are being kept."

At those words Kidar's eyes glinted a brighter violet and he stiffened.

"Where?" Kidar asked, his voice unnaturally calm.

"As he said, they're in a prison between dimensions," Ganondorf said.

"Ganondorf…" Mewtwo said angrily, "I don't like where you're going with this."

"Just bear with me," Ganondorf growled, "I don't have to make you happy. The only person whose opinion I ever cared about is dead now, and might I add that I am very grateful to you for that?" Ganondorf said, flashing a big smile at Link and the others.

"Just tell us where the prisoners are," Meta said.

"I will…on one condition. Lay down your arms, and relinquish control of your worlds to us. We'll tell you where your friends are, and even let you go get them…weaponless of course. If you want to try and fight us later you can, but for now…we'll go our separate ways."

"Not happening!" Link said, "Too many of us want you _dead_. And that's the only way you're leaving here."

"I didn't think you'd agree to it," Ganondorf said, cracking his knuckles, "Oh well, thought I'd give it a try."

"I can sweeten the deal," Giga said, his voice, while booming, was not quite as booming as Mr. Cranium's, "How about we do what Ganondorf said…and I get to eat some of you, like the monkey and Mario."

Diddy looked up at Giga with a burning rage, who merely smiled back like some kind of demented shark.

"That's a worse deal!" Falco said, "No way!"

"So be it," Ganondorf said, sadly shaking his head and the Smashers tensed, sensing violence was about to ensue, "Then I guess it's time to DIE!"

Giga laughed and charged towards Mario. Mewtwo floated a foot to the left to evade a blast of electricity from Raichu and then threw a Shadow Ball at him. Kidar stabbed at Ganondorf…who pulled a massive blade out from the shadows and blocked it before knocking him back with a pulse of dark energy.

Link ran forward as Samus fired a missile that skimmed past the Hylian's ear. Ganondorf batted the missile away like it was nothing and ran towards Link. Meta took to the air, but rather than assisting Link with Ganondorf he flew over their heads, past Giga Bowser who was slashing his massive claws at the frantic Mario, Kirby and Diddy who were trying to avoid his massive swipes. Meta paused briefly at Giga's back, but as if coming to a decision he turned again and flew towards Mewtwo.

Raichu was sent flying past Falco who had his pistol out and was firing at Mewtwo while running at him. Mewtwo deflected a few of the bolts, but Falco's aim with the pistol had gotten surprisingly good and even while moving he was able to keep the shots spread apart, each one flying towards different extremes of Mewtwo's body. Before the psychic could take a more active role in the battle a shot skimmed past his left foot bringing up a wince of pain. Falco took advantage of the distraction and his closeness to try a leaping kick but Mewtwo was faster than he thought and with a thought he grabbed Falco and flung him to the ground.

Mario leapt over the claw and jumped towards Giga Bowser's head, hammer raised but a powerful and fast jet of fire sent Mario skidding back, scorched. Diddy and Kirby attacked with grenades and slashes, but Giga's armored flesh didn't tear easily. Still cackling he curled into his shell and spun around, creating an icy whirlwind that sent Diddy and Kirby flying to either side of Giga, bleeding from cuts from the ice. Diddy leapt up first as Giga uncurled and ran towards him again; just barely avoiding getting hit by one of Samus's deflected missiles.

Link and Ganondorf met, blades clashing for the first time. Ganondorf's massive sword was about twice the size of Link's, a dark brown the color of dried blood with white lining the edges. The tip, rather than ending in a point like Link's and Kidar's was instead a crescent shape, with twin points arcing back towards the handle. Ganondorf wielded it less like a blade and more like a hammer, and he soon had no problem knocking Link's blade aside with a determined push. Samus aimed at Ganondorf but as Link was sent stumbling back she realized that she wouldn't be able to get a shot in with them as close together as they were…so she started to circle around.

Ganondorf eagerly took advantage of his early lead, stomping forward and doing another powerful, overhead slash. Link caught it on his shield, but the force behind it was so great he was almost brought to his knees. Grunting Link jumped back as Ganondorf stepped forward again, using his momentum to throw an extremely powerful and fast blow in a horizontal swipe…which missed completely as Link rolled underneath it, coming up in a slash that slipped through Ganondorf's armor to leave a gash in his stomach. Ganondorf winced at the pain and berated himself internally for his error in throwing so much weight behind the swing. He strained to step back, raising his blade in a defensive posture as Link struck again.

Mewtwo threw out a psychic shove to push Falco back and he dodged another bolt from the recovered Raichu. Shooting out a blast of disabling energy at the electric mouse he started to laugh, feeling confident in his superiority…and almost died right there as Meta seemed to come out of nowhere, sword aimed at Mewtwo's thin neck. Fortunately, at least for the psychic cat, his psychic powers gave him limited precognitive abilities and by the time the sword was at his neck Mewtwo had slid a few inches away from the strike, leaving Meta's sword hanging in the air.

Before Meta could figure out how he missed, Mewtwo blasted him with a ball of confusing energy that spun him around before releasing him. Dazed he tried to flap towards Mewtwo, but all he ended up doing was falling to the ground under Mewtwo's dismissive gaze.

Raichu struggled to stay conscious after Mewtwo's attack hit, and then he struggled to move. His limbs wobbled and he had a hard time standing, but he forced his way through it and started to charge up his bolt again, staggering towards Mewtwo.

Giga breathed some more massive jets of flame at Mario, when something slammed him below his right eye and exploded, leaving a seared scar and blowing harsh smoke into his eye. Grunting he slammed his lid down and squinted with the other eye as a second object flew into his vision. He managed to turn his head in time to avoid having it hit his eye, but he saw what was throwing them. Diddy!

The little chimp was using his jetpack to fly up to eye-level and was chucking grenades at him. He reached for another one but Giga wasn't having any of that. Using some dark magic to give the already beastly strong beast some more strength he punched out, hitting Diddy with his glowing dark violet hand. The blow was strong enough to short out the jetpack and break Diddy's left arm. Diddy was sent shooting towards the abyss.

Link made several frantic stabs at Ganondorf, hoping to end the battle quickly, but the large sword covered most of his unarmored body and Link was unable to land a decisive blow. Ganondorf grinned, knowing that Link would be unable to keep up the offensive for much longer and was looking forward to taking advantage of that fact. Unfortunately for Ganondorf, Link was no fool and he quickly switched tactics.

Link threw out a far stab, aimed to slice at Ganondorf's arm. Ganondorf easily batted it away but before he could take advantage of the poorly aimed attack Link slammed his shield forward, bashing Ganondorf in the face, bringing some blood from his nose and causing him to take a big step back. Letting himself reveal a small smirk Link stepped forward…just as Ganondorf raised his non-sword encumbered hand and sent Link flying backwards with a burst of energy. Samus tried to blast Ganondorf while Link was away, but he sent a burst of energy her way that sent her to her knees as her suit struggled to stay online.

Link was sent rolling and before he could leap up a second burst of dark magic, lightning this time, kept him pinned while his nerves screamed in agony. Ganondorf stomped over, blasting Link one more time before raising his sword high, point aimed at Link's neck.

"Didn't think I'd finally get a chance to end you here and now…but I had hoped. Say hello to your Goddesses for me."

The sword lowered and the only sound that could be heard was a metallic clang…followed by a sickening thud.

Mewtwo crouched low as Raichu staggered forward, gaining momentum as he moved. Feeling confident in his abilities again Raichu shot off a bolt of electricity at Mewtwo, powerful but predictable. Mewtwo merely smirked and spun it back towards Raichu…who absorbed it and stood up, grinning, and crackling with power. Mewtwo frowned, cursing his foolishness…and Raichu became a blur.

Meta felt bizarre. He didn't know what Mewtwo had done to him, but he was determined not to let it stop him so he determinedly took a step forward…and moved backward. Confused, he looked down towards his feet, and the next thing he saw were the planets whizzing past in the infinite vortex around them. He unfurled his wings and collapsed to the ground…nothing was working. Mewtwo had altered his mind and how it controlled his body. Meta stopped trying to do anything, focusing. The effects were temporary and while Raichu dashed around Mewtwo he could feel them slowly fading…but as he lay motionless he heard a quiet voice in his mind. One that commanded action. He resisted, knowing it would be foolish, but the voice was persistent and seemed to care little for the situation. It became louder and louder. The more he tried to ignore it the more pressing it became until it was a pounding force in his brain. Pain followed, terrible, excruciating pain…and there was only one solution. Giving into the voice Meta flew forward, sword raised.

Raichu smirked to himself as he essentially danced around Mewtwo, his speed far greater than that of the psychic cat. The only thing protecting the cat from the bolts shot his way were his precognitive abilities, but his body was already reacting slower…he wasn't used to combat taking this long. Raichu was confident in his victory…at least until Meta Knight screwed it up.

Crying out in rage and pain Meta shot forward, faster than Raichu even, his sword swinging wildly at Mewtwo. Unfortunately the attack missed, mostly because the yell gave Mewtwo ample warning to teleport out of the way…but Meta didn't stop. He continued forward at a blazing speed…right towards Raichu.

As Diddy plummeted through the air he frantically tried to get his jetpack working again, with his non-broken arm but it refused to activate, and the throbbing his panicked motions caused in his broken one forced him to stop. Before he could end up dead though, Mario leapt up and caught him, rather gently.

Giga frowned at that but before he could respond Kirby's sword strikes to his armored tail brought enough minor discomfort for him to twitch it, sending the puffball rolling across the stage, where he got zapped by one of Raichu's deflected bolts of electricity. Giga opened his mouth in a fiery grin as Mario put Diddy on the ground…before facing his foe.

Link stared at Ganondorf's hate-filled gaze before the sword came down. Determined to go out with his eyes open, displaying the courage he was so famous for, he still ended up closing them in surprise as something blurred across the edge of his vision. Something clanged…and the next thing he knew there was a thud and a small impact that jerked his head up before plopping it back down.

There was a moment of silence. Link heard a hiss of air escaping…from the guttural sound of the hiss, he would guess Ganondorf was exhaling. The exhale was drawn out, and seemed slowed down. Was this dying? It felt…weird. There was no pain and no pressure…but when Link heard voices he began to realize that perhaps he was not dead.

He opened his eyes…to see Kidar facing down Ganondorf. At the corner of his vision he could see Ganondorf's sword at an angle, the crescent blade near his pointy ear. Apparently Kidar had intercepted the attack…and saved Link's life. He wasn't sure who he was angrier at…Ganondorf for trying to kill him, Kidar for saving him…or himself for not being able to save himself.

"So, looks like you have some fight in you," Ganondorf said to Kidar while lifting his sword, "At least more than elf-boy here."

At that Link rolled away from Ganondorf and leapt to his feet, sword and shield completely ready.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that!"  
"You're welcome," Kidar said, a bit hurt that Link ignored him.

"I don't need your help," Link said harshly, "I can take care of Ganondorf on my own."

"Boy, you need a lot of help…too bad no one here can give it to you."

Several meters away Samus had managed to get control of her suit and was moving into position to open fire again as Link and Kidar spread themselves out around Ganondorf, to make their coming attack more difficult to block…but before Samus could attempt to join in Kidar called out to her.

"Samus! Go help the others with Giga Bowser…your talents are wasted here."

"I'm through taking orders from you!" Samus responded angrily, "I don't know what your problem is…but after the way you lied to us-"

"Samus!" Link cut in, "He's right. Go, fight Giga…we got this."

Samus looked at Link in shock but he wasn't looking back…his full attention was on Ganondorf. Hurt, but willing to bend to their logic and more importantly, to Link, she ran off towards Giga Bowser.

Ganondorf grinned at the both of them.

"Well, this should be interesting…I've been wanting to test your sword skills," he said, looking at Kidar.

"This test will be quick then!" Kidar said, charging forward, one blade stabbing forward towards his armored chest, the other slashing towards his legs. At the same time Link charged forward, his sword raised in an overhead slash. The attack was designed to trap Ganondorf between at least one of the three different strikes, something that should have been entirely possible considering how slow he moved and how heavy his sword was…but something happened they did not expect.

With a quick and violent maneuver Ganondorf placed both hands on the hilt of the sword…and dug his fingers into it. A sudden ripping motion and the sword was split in two long narrow halves that he used to quickly and effectively parry all three strikes before unleashing two more. Link and Kidar blocked them, noticing that the halves were shifting and curving to form white curved blades, as long, if not longer than the crescent-head sword but far thinner and lighter. Ganondorf stepped back from Link and Kidar, swords raised in a defensive position.

"Well…haven't seen you do that before," Link said.

"Something I've been working on," Ganondorf responded.

Kidar didn't say anything, but he gave Ganondorf an odd look…almost one of understanding. And then…the three attacked.

Meta sword opened up a trio of painful gashes on Raichu's stomach, his blood staining the yellow sword. Fortunately they weren't very deep and Meta stopped immediately after that…although it was too late for an enraged Raichu, who blasted him ten feet away with an electrical bolt he had been planning to hit Mewtwo with.

Meta was pinned to the stage temporarily and Raichu gave him a harsh glare.

"What the hell is your problem?!"

Meta shook off the effects of the bolt faster than Raichu would have expected, although the jerky movement of his standing revealed it had hurt a lot.

"I am sorry. I was…compelled to attack."

"I don't care…if you're going to be an idiot about this, than just _stay out of my way!_"

Mewtwo was smiling as the two fought amongst each other, and he was so preoccupied that he almost got hit by Falco's wing. But again, he sensed it coming and moved to avoid the strike…that was just building momentum for the snap kick that knocked Mewtwo to the ground.

Mario didn't hate Bowser, not like Diddy hated him for "killing" Dixie, the monkey who apparently is still alive somehow. He didn't hate Bowser like Raichu hated Mewtwo for destroying his home and killing his fiancée, he didn't hate Bowser like Link hated Ganondorf for countless reasons. Not that he didn't have reason to…Mario had been battling Bowser for various reasons for near a quarter of a century now, and after all that…Mario realized that Bowser isn't really that evil. He'd like to be, he likes to pretend to be a big bad guy but he's really more of a buffoon, a softy at heart. He's even helped Mario on several occasions, and if he did kill Dixie, that would be by far his most heinous action…but he didn't even seem to have done that right.

If Bowser was truly a threat, Mario had the power years ago to truly finish him off…but to be honest, he kind of liked the dastardly turtle and if he had his way he would let him survive this encounter as well. Only problem was that he wasn't facing Bowser. He was facing Giga Bowser.

Oh yes, there is a difference, one that Mario could both tell from now, and from the knowledge he had gained since the previous tournament. The incredible power from the crystal gives Bowser a bloodlust he can't control, and the addicting feeling of the power makes him come back for more. Mario never actually faced Giga Bowser, the form takes a lot of energy to maintain and Master Hand…or actually Mr. Cranium, couldn't keep Bowser at the last tournament after Mario threatened the turtle…so here was his chance to see Bowser at his best, to see his nemesis as an actual threat…who now must die before his uncontrollable form consumes him completely.

Mario charged at Giga. The monster belched out an expected stream of fire that Mario leaped over, heading for Giga's head. Giga grabbed at Mario, but the plumber jumped on and then off the first hand, firing firebombs the whole time at Giga's head, his one eye still shut from Diddy's explosion…and jumped right into Giga's second hand which grabbed him tight.

Giga grinned maliciously and tried to squeeze, but Mario pushing back the claws that held him and his beastly strength was enough to prevent himself from being crushed. Startled Giga moved his second hand towards Mario's head, when a Super Missile from the approaching Samus caught him in the side. At the same time Mario started releasing fire from his hands and Samus shot off several more missiles.

Anxious to avoid increasing pain, Giga tossed Mario in the air. The red-shirted hero was surprised at first but reacted quickly, spinning around to face Giga as he leaned down, using his shell to protect himself from Samus's brutal assault. Mario pumped firebombs towards his head, but they didn't seem to incite a reaction…until Giga lurched up, catching Mario with his spiky shell.

Most of the spikes missed, although a few sliced at him as he fell, opening up deep wounds…but the major injury was the massive spike protruding from his left hand. Mario had no time to extricate himself though, as an electrical charge passed through the spikes and into him, one powerful enough to send him flying off Giga and to the ground, several dozen feet away. Motionless…

Ganondorf's speed and skill with the twin blades was amazing. Countless times he blocked and parried attacks effortlessly, and when Link or Kidar attempted to retaliate he skillfully dodged, his great size belying his speed. His counter attacks were fast and vicious and it wasn't long into the fight before all three were bleeding from multiple wounds of varying severity.

However, his blades were notably thinner and lighter than his one sword had been and not a whole lot of force could be put behind them, especially since he could only devote one arm to each. His speed, while great still couldn't match that of the three swords and shield from his opponent at every turn and his power advantage was lessened with these blades. Slowly, but surely they were beating him down.

However as they battled and Ganondorf was driven ever further into a defensive posture, forced to make less and less overt attacks he realized something. Much like himself, Link was no master swordsman. They used brute force and special abilities, reflexes and reactions…and maybe a little bit of Triforce magic, although even Ganondorf wasn't entirely sure how those worked…but the point was he and Link had little technique, little actual skill with the sword. Kidar on the other hand…did.

He wielded his twin blades expertly, and it was his assaults Ganondorf found himself devoting more time to avoid. Link's strikes were slow and predictable, but Kidar's, while not as powerful, were more precise and far harder to even spot coming. Ganondorf found that by positioning himself well, Link's less precise strikes would get in Kidar's way, forcing both of them to watch for the other and making Kidar more preoccupied with his ally…who wasn't really taking great pains to avoid skewering him. Soon Kidar blocked one of Ganondorf's rare attacks and then jumped back to avoid Link's wide swing.

After Kidar didn't jump back into the fray, Link jumped back as well, and the three stared at each other, panting slightly.

"This isn't working…we don't fight well together," Kidar said matter-of-factly.

"I agree," Link said, "You should leave."  
"What?!"

"You're getting in my way and you're not needed."

"Are…are you sure about this?" Kidar asked, resignedly.

"Yes! Go help the others fight Giga Bowser, or Mewtwo, but leave me with him!"

"As…as you wish."

Kidar paused for several seconds, as if hoping Link would change his mind, but when the tunic-wearing swordsman turned back towards Ganondorf, Kidar nodded and ran towards a different battle.

This was better than Ganondorf could have hoped! The dangerous one, the mage or warrior or whatever Kidar was, was leaving, leaving Ganondorf with an old, familiar and predictable foe. As the two began to circle each other Ganondorf shoved the two blades back together, and they twisted into a new sword.

This one was similar to Link's in style and shape, although it had a flowery and ornate hilt. Additionally it was substantially larger and longer by half compared to Link's Master Sword. Most disturbing though was the brilliant glow from the sword, giving it an oddly holy feeling…although mixed with the purifying light was Ganondorf's dark taint, contaminating the once blessed blade.  
At Link's questioning gaze, Ganondorf grinned wider, his teeth glinting in the light from the sword as he gave it a sweeping flourish.

"This sword will be used in an attempt to kill me…but like most of those plans, it will backfire and I shall use the sword to kill those who tried to kill me."

"_Will _be used to try and kill you?" Link asked, questioning the strange tense.

"An alternate time line mayhaps," Ganondorf said, brushing aside the question, "I'm not sure myself…but you have more pressing things to attend to!"

And with nary a word more…Ganondorf charged.

Falco didn't have long to rejoice about his temporary victory. As soon as Mewtwo hit the ground he vanished, and the bolts Falco had shot off burned into the ground where the psychic had hit. He spun around at the sound of displaced air, but a powerful psychic shove knocked him down…and a second, more precise one shattered the bones in his gun hand, causing him to scream in pain and drop the pistol.

Before Mewtwo could blast Falco again, this time in a more vulnerable spot, a powerful blast of dark magic flew over Mewtwo, neutralizing his attack and leaving a chilling sensation. Frightened for the first time in a long while, Mewtwo spun to meet the attacker, focusing again to try and regain his psychic hold. The attacker shot forth a ball of energy, but Mewtwo reacted quickly enough to bat it away.

"So…Kidar," Mewtwo said to the swordsman, who had his swords sheathed, "You do have some power. I knew there had to be more to you than what we had seen…the amount of interest M.C. demonstrated in you was unprecedented."

"There's even more than you know," Kidar said, glaring at Mewtwo while bits of black lightning flickered around his clenched fists.

Suddenly Meta Knight and Raichu both attacked Mewtwo, hoping to hit him while he was distracted. Raichu's attack was a simple bolt of lightning, that Mewtwo deflected with scarcely a thought, while Meta flew low to the side, sword drawn back. Mewtwo halted him with a gesture and continuing his momentum, looped him around until he slammed into the moaning Falco. Applying more psychic effort he shoved the squirming duo roughly along the ground until they crashed into the fleeing Raichu, sending the three careening into a painful pile.

"Now that those peons are out of the way…let's do this," Mewtwo said, eager to test his abilities against a magic-user, brushing aside his earlier fear at seeing how Kidar had done nothing to stop him from casually assaulting his companions.

"You're going to regret challenging me," Kidar warned, raising a hand.

"One of us is at least," Mewtwo said, jerking his hands forward and shooting off dozens of shadow balls at Kidar…the battle was on.

Diddy tried to move, but his injured arm flopped uselessly at his side, bringing forth a hiss of pain. Mario was lying still on the other side of Giga, and Diddy could see Ganondorf and Link fighting near one corner and winced in sympathetic pain as his friend got tossed around in the other corner. Samus and Kirby were keeping up the pressure on Giga Bowser, but while his attacks were slow, they were absurdly strong, as both Diddy and Mario could attest to. Considering the fact that even Samus's missiles barely even drew a blink and it was obvious it was only a matter of time until either her or the puffball made a fatal mistake.

Diddy felt useless. He finally had his chance to avenge Dixie, although the continued implications that she was alive made him unsure if avenging her was the right thing to do…no! Bowser, Giga Bowser, whatever he's called had to die anyways, and this was the best time and chance to do it. Only problem was he was lying beaten on the ground, while his enemy still tore apart his friends. The only thing preventing Diddy from sinking deeper into a self-pitying depression was the knowledge that Mario had been beaten as well, so it wasn't so bad…

Yet, in the corner of his vision Diddy saw something move. Looking in shock he saw Mario clamber to his feet, bleeding profusely from his hand and from the scores of smaller wounds…yet the fire in his eyes was undimmed, and it was obvious as he stomped towards Giga, flames growing around his hands, he was not giving up.

Strangely this inspired Diddy and he crawled up to a kneeling position. Leaving his broken arm flopping he used his other to pull out his guitar...but after a cursory glance he put it back. It was still recharging from when he used it against M.C. His biggest weapon was worthless...except…he might have one more trick up his sleeve. Diddy reached towards his back…

Link and Ganondorf met with a terrible clanging of swords. They pushed against the other's blade, glaring at each other but Link pulled back, not willing to make it a contest of strength. Ganondorf almost lost his balance, but his new sword wasn't as unwieldy as his first one and so he was able to bring it back in time to block Link's stab. Link didn't stop there, as he unleashed three more strikes from different angles, hoping to press his advantage. Attacking can be wearying though and Ganondorf was able to take control of the match again after Link's fourth attack, by batting it aside and stepping back.

Using his longer reach and longer sword to keep Link back Ganondorf executed a punishing series of horizontal and diagonal slashes. Link at first tried to block with his sword and shield, but the blows were so powerful that they vibrated both painfully and at the risk of losing the feeling in his arms Link was reduced to dodging the attacks.

Ganondorf laughed as he pressed the assault, forcing Link to back up, closer and closer to the platforms edge. He tried to roll underneath one of Ganondorf's horizontal strikes but the Gerudo saw the shift in body weight and blasted the ground in front of Link with a hasty bolt of energy. Cursing Link backed away from the sizzling pool and turned towards Ganondorf, his feet only inches from the edge.

"Any last words Link?" Ganondorf taunted.

"…"

At that Ganondorf raised an eyebrow, "Now's an odd time to be resorting to the slow silent type, boy."

When Link still refused to say anything, and merely glared at Ganondorf the man shrugged and threw out an immensely powerful strike aimed at an angle towards where Link's shoulder met his neck…but Link surprised Ganondorf by raising his shield and catching the full force of a blow hard to enough to crack the seemingly impenetrable shield. Link pushed back with the shield, his arm already growing numb and lunged forward.

Panicked Ganondorf raised an arm to block the Master Sword he was sure Link was aiming at his throat…but after half-a-second of no impact Ganondorf jerked the hand forward and grabbed at Link. The Hylian evaded the initial grab and Ganondorf turned it into a side-swipe that sent Link unfortunately tumbling **away **from the edge.

Furious Ganondorf turned to Link who was lying on the ground, staring at Ganondorf's feet with a smirk. Confused, Ganondorf looked down…just as the bomb Link planted there exploded.

Ganondorf yelled in pain as the explosion burned some of his exposed skin on his armored legs, and stepped back, covering his face as smoke drifted upwards. He blinked rapidly, trying to see again as the smoke cleared…and saw a glint of light flash towards him. Assuming it was an arrow he raised a hand, focusing some of his power there to block it…and yelled in even more pain as the sword beam scorched his hand.

Stepping back again, but making sure to do it away from the edge Ganondorf stared at Link in shock, his arm holding the sword dangling limply at his side. Link merely grinned and charged at Ganondorf, his sword glowing orange. Ganondorf raised his blade in an attempt to block, but Link stopped well short of Ganondorf and unleashed a familiar spin attack. At first Ganondorf was confused since the attack was performed too far away to be effective…until the ring of magical energy came pouring out from around the spin. Frantically Ganondorf held his sword in front of himself in a defensive posture and concentrated.

Most of the attack was diverted, but enough power came through to do some damage to Ganondorf. Angrily he lowered his sword…and had to raise it again as Link slashed. Now Ganondorf was on the defensive, and as Link's increasingly skillful strikes pushed through his defenses he realized that this time he might lose. Ganondorf managed to shoot off a burst of dark lightning again, but Link blocked it easily with his shield. Still, the attack bought Ganondorf some breathing room…but as Link raised his hand again he saw something rather frightening.

The Triforce piece on the back of Link's hand was glowing a brilliant gold, brighter than anytime Ganondorf had seen before…and as he raised his sword to block he saw his own triangle was getting steadily dimmer…

As Mewtwo flung forth the shadow balls, Kidar created a temporary wall that absorbed the attacks, the translucent violet shield shimmering slightly. Dropping it as quickly as it came, Kidar jerked his left hand forward and shot out a powerful burst of dark energy, in the form of a serpentine strip of lightning.

Mewtwo slid away from the attack, the stench of crackling ozone burning their nostrils, and Kidar shot out his other hand, a ball of energy the color of amethyst blasting out. Mewtwo prepared to dodge when he realized it wasn't aimed at him, rather it was aimed at the ground beneath his floating feet.

The ball exploded into a small portal that immediately began tugging on Mewtwo, but before he could get dragged into it he teleported away. He reappeared eight feet farther to Kidar's right, a grin on his face.

"Come now? A portal? We all saw how you finished off M.C., you won't be getting me in the same way."

"Fine," Kidar growled staring at Mewtwo. He clenched his fist again, closing the portal but otherwise remaining motionless.

"What? Giving up already?" Mewtwo said, vaguely confused…and then he felt an unfamiliar presence in his mind, "No! How dare you!"

Kidar ignored Mewtwo's cries and pressed harder, attempting to override Mewtwo's mind with his own…but the psychic rallied and shoved Kidar out of his mind, although as Kidar panted, he noticed Mewtwo was breathing heavier.

"That…is new," Mewtwo said angrily.

"Maybe not as new as you think," Kidar said, before unleashing another bolt of energy. Mewtwo attempted to deflect it, but realizing how powerful the attack was he chose to dodge, rather than match. As Kidar attempted to turn to face Mewtwo, the cat jabbed his hand forward, freezing Kidar in his psychic power. As Kidar struggled in vain, Mewtwo laughed and started to move forward…and suddenly stopped, as Kidar held him in place as well.

The two glared at each other, both straining to hold the other and to break free. But as they fought against the others power, neither noticed Raichu behind them, glowing a brilliant blue…

Giga Bowser opened his mouth, preparing to swallow Kirby, who had jumped up to hit him in the face, and was now regretting that decision…but before Giga could do so, a familiar voice yelled out.

"Here we go!"

As Giga turned, Mario shot forth the largest Firestorm yet, the twin spurts of fire literally erupting from his hands and expanding until the cyclone of fire they created had a diameter challenging Giga's size. He had no chance of avoiding the attack, and it drilled into him violently, scorching the flesh and causing even the scaled skin to bubble and burn. Giga hissed in agonizing pain, but it was obvious he still had plenty of fight left in him as he turned his deformed and disfigured smoking body towards Mario, who was on his knees from exhaustion.

And that was when Samus struck.

While Kirby distracted Giga, Samus activated the only ability she had that could take him down, and Mario had given her the time needed to charge it up. Before Giga could kill Mario…Samus devoted all the power in her suit to shooting off another Zero Laser.

The absurdly huge blue-white beam of energy wasn't quite as big as Mario's Firestorm, but it was considerably denser and it piled into Giga Bowser's back with the force of a raging bull. Destroying nerve endings and charring flesh, Giga probably didn't feel much in the way of pain, although it was likely the attack would cripple him…and in fact, it seemed to be the case when the brilliant glare faded and Samus's suit dropped uselessly around here. A massive crater ringed Giga's back, and the majority of his internal organs looked damaged beyond repair…the mere fact that she could see them was testament to how beaten Giga was…yet, whether by his own stubborn will or the power of the mysterious crystal, he still clung to life and stomped towards Mario, determined to end his.

And that was when Diddy unleashed his final assault on the monster he had sworn to destroy.

Link was having the time of his life. He felt better than he had ever felt before, strong, fast, and even prescient to a degree. Whenever Ganondorf threw out a desperate attack, Link was there, blocking it and countering. Link's own wounds seemed to be fading, and with every exchange between the two Ganondorf's got deeper and more debilitating.

Soon Ganondorf was forced to try something different and gathering his rapidly draining energy he leapt several meters away from Link. Glaring at the swordsman, Ganondorf raised his hand, trying to focus his Triforce of Power, and hopefully transform into Ganon…but Link never gave him that chance.

Link wasn't sure how he knew how to do this, and honestly he didn't care. But when he saw Ganondorf focusing his remaining power, Link's hand began to burn, the Triforce on it a blinding gold. Raising his hand so the triangle faced Ganondorf, a thin line of light shot out of it at a blinding speed. Ganondorf didn't even have time to gasp in shock before it hit him…and immediately trapped him between two rotating Triforce shaped fields.

Allowing the power of the Triforce of Courage to guide his motions, Link almost flew across the twenty feet separating him from Ganondorf, and as soon as he reached his imprisoned foe he allowed the Blade of Evil's Bane to control his arm in a blistering series of vicious slashes that literally tore Ganondorf apart, the glowing blade inflicting more damage after each blow on Ganondorf's decidedly evil body.

At last, when Ganondorf could barely cling to life…it ended. Unfortunately for Ganondorf it ended by Link stabbing the sword violently into his chest…his heart.

Abruptly the Triforce symbols faded, and Ganondorf's destroyed body slumped to the ground. He glared at Link one last time, and opened his mouth to say one last disparaging remark…but all that came out was a gasp as his life escaped his body, which then exploded into the familiar pink dust, rejuvenating Link even as the power rush from the Triforce started to fade.

Kidar's and Mewtwo's standoff did not last long. Gathering all the electrical power he could control…and a lot he couldn't, Raichu blasted off what he had hoped to be a massive bolt of lightning…however, he didn't discharge nearly enough of it, so the remaining electricity in his body actually attracted the excess he had fired off and rather than becoming a bolt of lightning it curved back around numerous times, forming a bluish-white sphere around Raichu.

Terrified at first, he soon realized that the sphere wasn't hurting him and as looked out he could see through it, although everything was mired in a bluish haze. Hesitantly stepping forward he soon found himself floating and as his confusion faded he began to move faster, shooting towards Mewtwo with the power that complete and total hatred bestows.

Mewtwo was powerless to avoid the attack, with him and Kidar draining each other, trying to keep the other motionless he didn't have a chance to even see it coming. Raichu slammed into him, the electricity forming the ball immediately flowing into Mewtwo's body…which was not designed to take that kind of punishment. But it wasn't over, as more and more electricity poured out of Raichu, more than even he thought he could control, zapping Mewtwo with thousands upon thousands of volts of electricity…and then continuing upwards.

While the sheer amount of electricity should have been enough to kill off Mewtwo, the fact that Kidar was holding him motionless made it **impossible** for him to survive. The vibrations were prevented from going past the cellular level, and as Raichu finally ran out of juice Mewtwo had almost literally torn himself apart.

As Raichu looked on Mewtwo began to collapse…before exploding into the pink dust, making him feel both rejuvenated…and curiously morose…

Diddy came flying towards Giga's head, his twin Jetpack Barrels flaming as he set them to max burn. At the last second he flipped a latch with his good hand and fell roughly to the ground, crying out as he landed on his broken arm. The Barrels however, continued forward.

Both slammed into Giga's face, exploding with an impressive force that made Diddy's orange grenades look pathetic. When the explosion cleared, there wasn't much left of Giga's face…but his burning eyes were fixated on Diddy. He took a single monstrous step forward…and then collapsed, his injuries finally catching up with him.

Before he even hit the ground he exploded, the pink dust somehow more powerful than usual, perhaps because of the odd crystal? Instantly it mended Diddy's arms and closed Mario's wounds and made them all feel refreshed, like they just took a relaxing bath, rather than as if they had been fighting for their lives.

With various degrees of excitement the nine Smashers gathered around the center of the stage where the crystal powering the healing properties of Final Destination had once lay.

"I don't believe it," Diddy said, joy ringing his words, "I really did it…I beat Giga Bowser…not by myself of course," he finished, laughing nervously at Samus and Mario, who merely gave him a quick grin apiece.

"And I beat Mewtwo," Raichu grumbled, "So why don't I feel better?"

"It doesn't matter!" Falco said excitedly, "We did it! We finished off every single villain there is! We won!"

The others began to grin wider at his words, but Samus's next ones cut the joy short.

"This isn't exactly the time to be celebrating. Kidar has some explaining to do."  
Kidar looked at Samus rather sharply, and she unwillingly took a step back. Something was different about him. Earlier when Link would press Kidar/Bario he would be nervous, and rather embarrassed…you felt kind of bad for him. But now he seemed defiant…and dangerous.

"I do suppose I owe you all that much," Kidar said, his voice surprisingly absent of warmth, "Now that we have effectively neutralized M.C. and his more prominent minions, there is no need for this charade."

"Charade?" Raichu asked, off put by his friends disturbing tone.

Kidar looked at them all long and hard, his violet eyes almost sizing them up. Shaking his head he grinned slightly and stepped out of the group. They turned to follow him with their eyes as he spoke.

"I would guess none of you buy my story of just happening to end up in Hyrule because I hero-worship Link? Or that I was forced to travel the dimensions, unable to find a home?"

When silence greeted his actions Kidar stopped and spun around, 12 feet from the gathered Smashers.

"Then I guess it's time a lost this ridiculous costume."

There was a flash of violet light that temporarily blinded the others…and when it faded Kidar was garbed in something rather different.

Gone was the red Hylian tunic, the white leggings. In their place was black armor, thick but close enough to the flesh to allow easy movement. The edges of the armor were laced with gold trim, and a magnificent violet cloak fluttered around his back. His swords were gone, and as Kidar folded his gauntleted hands across his chest it was obvious that the others had grossly underestimated him.

Link was the first to speak, but the anger he had normally when talking to Kidar had faded, for confusion…and even a hint of fear.

"Where…where **are** you from?"

Kidar raised an eyebrow at him but didn't answer the question, so Link repeated it again more forcefully.

"Why Link, you're standing on it."

"What?!"  
"I am from this dimension…the Smashing Realm is where I came into being."

There was a long moment while the others attempted to process this. Finally, Falco asked the next question, terrified of the answer, but knowing it would be far worse if he didn't ask.

"What are you?"

"That question's a bit more difficult than Link's," Kidar said, his cool voice causing Kirby and Diddy to shiver slightly, "But I shall explain it in the best way that I can. I was not "born" in the way that you all were…rather, I was _created_."

"What the hell does that mean?" Samus demanded, "By who?"

"Isn't it obvious? No? Hmph…I would have thought you all would have figured it out by now. I was created by none other than M.C."

There was a longer pause as the others tried to stomach this disturbing piece of news. Raichu opened his mouth, certain that his friend was lying, that it wasn't true…but he closed it without a word, the finality with which Kidar had spoken making it all too obvious it was the truth. This day was rapidly becoming worse.

"How…why?" was all Link managed to get out, as the shocks kept coming.

"The how…well, I wish the how was simple, then perhaps this couldn't have turned into such an ordeal. It took him ten years to make me, from bits of power and out of newly formed matter here, in this nexus," Kidar said, gesturing at the vortex around them, "He stole bits from Ganondorf and Mewtwo, hairs, some of their power. They didn't notice, as he did it gradually. And over the years, I began to take shape.

"My dark magic comes from Ganondorf, although it is considerably more potent than whatever that old fool could conjure, and from Mewtwo I gained the ability to peer into other's minds, although rather than telekinetic powers M.C. altered it to give me something closer to _mind-control_. My sword skills are loosely based off of both Ganondorf's and you, Link," Kidar said, gesturing at the Hylian, "Although I can proudly say I am far more adept in their usage than either of you.

"Another thing he gave me was precise control over and the ability to create portals, something Cranium could do although since I was designed for it, I am significantly more proficient at it than he was.

"I assume he hoped to give me something from Bowser…perhaps his resilience, or his stubbornness…but there is a limit to how much you can pour into a single vessel, regardless of how powerful it may be…and the power straight from M.C. was more than enough for me to do what I had to."

"So you're some kind of super-soldier, right?" Falco asked, "But why…why would he go to all that effort to make you?"

Kidar laughed slightly at that, but the laugh was harsh and Falco began to wonder just how much trouble they were really in.

"A super-soldier? What a _simple_ title…you people really are amusing. It feels so good to finally tell you all this, pretending to be Bario was so very tiring. With the exception of Mr. Cranium, only one other person ever saw the **real **me."

"Answer the question!" Link commanded, determined to take control of this unsettling situation.

"As you wish," Kidar said mockingly, "I was created for one reason, and one reason alone…to help M.C. conquer the universes.

"I was to be his right-hand man, and with my skill at opening portals I was key to his plan of using his armies to overrun his enemies. Additionally I was to use my mental abilities to…_persuade _those who did not wish to willingly join. It was a brilliant plan, and his army as you have seen, is immense."

"But you didn't! You didn't help him! And you killed him! So…you're on our side…right?" Diddy asked hopefully…a hope that was dispelled by Kidar's next words.

"You are right, I didn't help him. M.C. made me perfectly…except for one simple thing. He didn't have a way to control me. Clearly he arrogantly thought his incredible power would be enough to keep me in line, but in some bizarre twist of fate, I, a creature created for the sole purpose of serving…had no desire to serve. Once I realized I was to be essentially his slave, I fought back. Our battle was terrible…but M.C. was strong enough to beat me.

"He could have killed me then and there, but the time and energy he had invested in me was precious, and he doubted he could have kept another creation hidden from some of his more powerful minions. It was pure luck that they never discovered me. So he tried to capture me, and with the last of my strength I created a portal and escaped."

"So…what does that mean? What _is _your goal?" Samus asked.

"It's simple. I want to rule the universes, and I want you to join me now that our competition has been eliminated."

Link laughed at that, the harsh sound matching Kidar's.

"You've got to be kidding, M.C. made the same offer and we refused. Why would we accept yours?"

Kidar sighed at that, and looked at the others as they tensed and drew their weapons, although several of them looked rather unhappy with the idea of fighting a friend.

"I had hoped that fighting alongside you would have built up trust and camaraderie, but it seems I was mistaken."

"Trust? Everything you told us was a lie!" Samus yelled furiously, a small drop of wetness staining her cheek, "I defended you against all the "crazy" accusations Link made about you, against the unfounded suspicion…and all this time you were manipulating us! We will **never** help you in any fashion!"

"Fine," Kidar said angrily, "Then I guess I have no choice but to force you to join me."

"Force us? Are you crazy? I don't care how strong you think you are!" Link said cockily, "You're alone, and the eight of us shouldn't have any problems beating you!"

However the surprises weren't done yet…as the biggest one had been saved for last. Out of one of the eight Smashers a voice called out, and what it said chilled the others to the bone.

"He's not alone…_**I**_ will help him."

It was Mario.


	52. Darkness and Flame

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Fifty-Two: Darkness and Flame**

Mario's horrifying words echoed around Final Destination as he calmly stepped out of the group and walked to Kidar, stopping when he stood next to him and adopted a relaxed and altogether cheerful pose.

The platform the Smashers were on seemed to become immeasurably colder, as if they were traveling throughout the depths of frozen space, rather than a swirling nexus of all the dimensions. Kidar's wintry gaze took in the Smashers as they stared blankly and in shock at Mario, who upon reaching Kidar's side adopted a relaxed and loose pose and turned to his companions.

It was hard to pick which one had a more terrifying expression. Kidar's was like that of an icy lake, harsh and unforgiving. His eyes seemed to glow faintly with a dark and violent violet light that promised agony…and above all else, domination. As Kidar himself said, it was odd for a being that was created only to serve would have such an overpowering desire to _control _but the desire was obvious to those who saw it. The worst part of it all though, was that this monster, this heartless fiend, had posed as their friend, a lovable bumbling swordsman who had only wanted to impress. Even Link, who had suspected more, had never suspected the depths Kidar could sink, the sheer and unbelievable prowess he had at lying and manipulating…every single word, action, even his expressions had all been falsehoods designed solely to get them to trust him…and unknowingly do his bidding.

Mario's expression on the other hand, was as far apart from Kidar's as it could get. Where Kidar's was emotionless and unforgiving, Mario's eyes blazed with a terrifying joy as they looked at the others over his large nose. Fires danced in his expression, fires that bespoke of terrible power and hidden rage that even now bubbled to the surface in a desperate and unquenchable desire. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as his fists clenched and unclenched. He was happier than they had ever seen him before…but that was decidedly not a good thing.

"I don't…I don't understand," Link said, looking at Mario in confusion, "What is this?"  
Kidar smiled at that, a twisting of the face that did nothing to make it look more inviting.

"You still don't get it, do you? Oh my, it's really too bad you weren't blessed with the Triforce of Wisdom…maybe then you wouldn't be such an idiot…of course that could explain why you weren't given it…"  
"Stop it!" Samus said, "You betrayed us…you don't need to insult us as well!"

"Fine, fine," Kidar said, still grinning and raising his hands in a mock "don't yell at me" pose, "I guess it all started…what?"

Mario raised a hand, palm towards Kidar in a clearly halting motion.

"I want to tell this," Mario said, his voice carrying only a hint of the expected Italian accent. It revealed nothing about how he felt, it was calm and controlled, although unlike Kidar's superior but cold tone, Mario's was conversational, with but a slight taste of deeper emotion.

"Fine…it's your story now."

Mario cleared his throat, his voice slightly raspy from little use, but before he could begin speaking Falco interjected.

"Sorry for interrupting," Falco said in a tone that implied he was not sorry, "But why are you even bothering to tell us all this? Why'd you tell us your life history if you're just going to force us to join you? Wasting a bit of time aren't you?"

Mario looked a little off-put about being cut off before he could begin, but Kidar was the one who answered the question.

"A valid point…and I'll be honest, the main reason is I hoped that after all that, you would realize that I was your best chance for a future…but clearly," Kidar said, as several snorts of disbelief met his ears, "I was wrong."  
"Is that it?" Meta Knight asked, his deep voice coming as a bit of a surprise since he had remained strangely silent, "Is that why you feel so compelled to tell us everything about yourself?"

Kidar gave Meta an amused look before responding, "No…it isn't…oh Meta, there is much that is going to change…"

That odd statement brought several confused glances but before any more questions could be raised, Kidar spoke again.

"I respected you all enough that even if I am about to beat the stuffing out of you and enslave you, I feel you at least deserve to know why."

"Gee, thanks," Falco said, "But-"

"Enough questions for now," Mario said, silencing Falco instantly, "It is my turn to speak."

Falco looked decidedly upset that he was cut short, but Mario had an air about that bespoke extreme pain if he wasn't allowed to speak.

Mario began to talk then, casually moving around the stretch of land between Kidar and the others, as if talking to both. While he spoke the others remained silent…more out of shock than out of any respect for the plumber.

"I have been a hero, widely considered one of the greatest, for over a quarter of a century. I say this now, not out of any conceit or attempt at boasting, but to help you understand why I have made the choices that I have. You see, it is _boring_, to constantly be the good guy, the hero, the champion…especially when you have nothing to show for it."

As Mario talked his voice occasionally rose in timbre and pitch, excitement boiling just beneath the surface, and unlike Kidar's icy and heartless speech, Mario's was revealing that he cared a great deal…it just wasn't about anything good.

"You see, I've saved the princess dozens of times, stopped villains from things as simple as blocking off trade routes and causing general mischief, to conquering nations and ending more than one world…hell, I've even saved the universe!

"And what do I have to show for all that?" Mario demanded, spinning towards the others, his body exuding flames, "NOTHING! Millions upon millions owe me their _lives_ and all I get is a shack with my coward of a brother!"

"That doesn't mean you have join Kidar!" Link interjected, "Geez man, you're iconic, everyone respects you…and you're going to throw that away for the lies he promises you? Come on…I thought you were better than that!"  
Mario gave Link a long look…and then he smiled.

"I guess I didn't explain myself well enough. I'm not "joining" him now…I've been helping him since before this adventure started."

"You've been WHAT?!" Link, Samus, Falco, Diddy, Raichu and Meta said and even Kirby looked angry. The seven stepped forward but a burst of flame erupted from Mario's hand and impacted the ground in front of them, forcing them to step back.

"Now, now…it's rude to interrupt," Kidar said, wagging a finger disapprovingly at them, "Although if you want, we could just fight now…"

"No," Samus said, "I want to know how…_Mario _ended up working for a scumbag like you."

"I'm not working _for-a _him," Mario said irritably, his accent becoming slightly thicker as his temper rose, "I'm working _with _him…we're partners."

"Sure," Meta said, "And how'd that happen?"  
"Hmph," Mario said, "As I was saying…After over twenty-five years of being the greatest hero that ever existed I still found myself living in a small shack on the outskirts of town, while the princess I kept rescuing lived in a castle surrounded by servants. I didn't use to care…but as I continued to put my life on the line for seemingly no reason, I began to grow bitter, angrier. I was on the verge of snapping and I honestly don't know what I would have done if Kidar didn't end up in my backyard."  
At that there were several surprised looks at Kidar, who merely frowned slightly before answering.

"After my battle with M.C., I opened a portal, I didn't plan on it going anywhere specific, I just wanted out of there, and so I suppose it was my good fortune that I ended up near Mario."

"Yes, well…he was weak and near death when I found him. I could tell he had an unsavory look, and I thought he was some minion of Bowser's or something. I was actually looking forward to unleashing some of my frustration, but he managed to stop me from killing him.

"He told me of his history and, seeing a kindred soul in me, offered me a chance to join him in his plans of conquest. I did not however, jump at the chance. I was wary and distrustful…I nursed him back to health, in a secret basement in my house…heh, Luigi thinks I never found it…and while he healed and grew stronger we spoke and planned, and I realized that what he was offering me was exactly what I wanted…a chance to do something different, to get rewarded for all my hard work…and have quite a bit of fun.

"We both agreed the first thing we had to do was assemble an army, or at least a group, of strong capable fighters who would be willing to fight at our side…and I suggested the combatants from the Melee tournament. Kidar agreed, but in order to get them to come we couldn't tell them the actual reason for why we wanted them, so I sent a bogus letter to Peach, requiring her and my brother to leave on business. With them gone, I was free to let Kidar roam free, none of the Mushroomers would dare question me on anything…they would all die for me, so at least I have that," Mario said, grinning slightly.

"This is insane," Diddy mumbled, "I just…can't believe that Mario…"

"Once the castle was solely in my control I sent out more requests to every member of the Melee tournament, with the exception of Mewtwo, Bowser and Ganondorf, stating that Peach needed them to help guard the castle from Bowser. Strangely, most didn't show, although now we know that M.C. and his goons had already captured several and now we know why Diddy and Raichu came, in place of Donkey Kong, Pikachu and his friends…you wanted assistance, combat assistance, much in the same way we did."

"Don't you dare compare us, we are nothing like you!" Raichu spat, "You sicken me!"

"As if I care," Mario said gleefully, "You can be sick all you want…it won't change a thing!"

"I don't know how much more of this I can stomach," Link said, starting to tense, but Samus put a hand on his shoulder.  
"Just wait…we'll let them finish their spiel so we know if there's anything else we missed or need to know…and then we'll kick their asses."

Samus's whisper, although meant to be for Link's ears only, was heard by Kidar, but he showed no sign of it, a small tugging upwards of the mouth was the only hint that he had heard.

"Yes, well, as I was saying," Mario said, struggling to keep his calm, although it was clear from his tense body language that he was itching for a fight, "Yoshi was easy to convince, of course, and after you arrived Falco, Fox informed me he was planning on coming in a few days…which didn't happen for obvious reasons. Link, Samus and Kirby were all expected, although Meta Knight tagging along was a surprise. All in all it was less turn-out than expected, and Kidar and I agreed we would wait for more.

"Unfortunately M.C. forced our hand and ordered Bowser to attack, ironic really, because the danger of Bowser attacking was the very lie we used to get you all to come. We had no choice but to lead an attack, and in the end it worked out rather well."

Mario paused then and while the others didn't hear it, there was a slight questioning tone in his words. Kidar may have respected the others enough to be amiable and answer their questions, but despite Mario's supposed glee it almost seemed as if he was using the speech as an excuse to analyze his decisions, to verify that he did indeed, make the right choice in joining Kidar.

"If all you wanted was to kill M.C., using our help," Link said as Mario paused, "Why didn't you just teleport us there right away, instead of wasting all our time with fighting off those minor villains?"  
"Because I was still recuperating, and we would have been annihilated. The majority of you were unwilling or incapable of using your skills to their max at the beginning of the adventure, and we were not as finely honed a team as we became," Kidar answered, "Additionally I wanted to remove enough of M.C.'s forces so we could force a single confrontation and prevent his generals from forming their own army."

"But if all you needed was the nine of us…well, ten, counting Yoshi, why did you make an effort to get everyone?" Diddy asked, "Were you just greedy?"

Kidar sighed…his respect for the others had only increased as they had become more adept in combat, and even in suspecting his true identity, but his patience was wearing thin…he had been waiting for this moment for weeks…the moment where he established himself as the dominant power in the dimensions.

"The original plan was to get about twenty or more total guarding the castle and then we would stage some kind of event that would involve us traveling to the Smashing Realm and killing M.C. When Bowser actually attacked we realized we didn't have enough time to wait, so we made an adjustment…I decided to devote more time to building our strength, both individually and as a group. That pink dust at the end of every battle was a bit of my spellwork…I used the dying energies of our foes to heal us, and as I stated before it gradually increased your power. We are all considerably stronger than we were at the beginning of this…adventure."

At that, supposedly the last of the revelations it seemed like the conversation was over and there was a disturbing air of finality over everyone, as they realized that this was the most important battle they had and may ever fight.

"We don't have to do this!" Raichu said, his fury having greatly abated with the death of Mewtwo at his own hands…despite the rejuvenating energies at the end of the battles, he and the rest were all _tired_. Perhaps not physically, but mentally and emotionally they were drained and while this betrayal may have angered him and the others, another fight was not something they desired…even if Mario and Kidar probably didn't stand a chance against the seven of them, "We can come to some kind of agreement!"

"And what would that be?" Kidar questioned, "The only agreement I'm willing to make is your compliance to our wishes…and depending on how you join, it may affect where you will stand in the new world we're making."

"We've already made it clear that none of us are joining either of you in any fashion," Link said, quite heroically, "And regardless of what some may want," Link continued, giving Raichu a pointed look, "We can't allow you two to carry out whatever you have planned…we have to stop you."

"You can't," Mario said, "We're fighting for our dreams…you're only fighting to squash them, which I suppose makes you our villains."

"We're fighting to prevent you from ruining the lives of countless people!" Samus said, "We're not villains…and we could care less what your 'dreams' are!"

"That's enough!" Kidar said, "This conversation has gone on long enough! Now is your final chance…will any of you willingly join, or do we have to force you?"

There was a pinched silence following his declaration…but it was one that did not last long. Surprisingly the first to act was not Link or Samus…it was Kirby. With frightening anger in his expression he drew out both his Cutter and sword and charged at Kidar. Kidar merely smiled and pointed a finger at the six other Smashers. Kirby leapt and Kidar made no move to defend himself…because someone else did it for him. Meta Knight.

With stunning speed the masked knight flew into Kirby's path, smacking Kirby down to the ground with a series of quick and sudden slashes aimed at Kirby's blades. Kirby hit the ground hard, more surprised than hurt, while Meta flapped down again, his bat-like wings forming into his distinctive cape, his eyes a dull violet.

"What is _this_?!" Samus demanded as Meta raised his sword in a defensive position, "A third traitor? How have you convinced Meta Knight to join you Kidar? Did you threaten him?"

At that Kidar laughed again, harsh and cold.

"Oh Samus, you don't see it…you don't see what's right in front you!"

"What are you…?" Samus started, but stopped when she noticed the others, especially Kirby, peering intensely into Meta's rather blank stare.

"Something's off but…" Falco said.

"Oh my g-his eyes! His eyes!" Diddy almost shouted.

"I don't understand...what are we looking at?" Raichu asked.

"Your future," Kidar said chillingly, "Meta Knight is the first and most likely not the last to join our forces unwillingly."

"What have you **done** to him?!" Link yelled.

"Done? You act like it's something new…no Link, Meta Knight has been under my control for several days now."

"You can't…that's…impossible!" Falco said, "You can't just control someone like that!"  
"Clearly I can. I was, after all, designed for it. Perhaps a description of what fate will befall you if you continue to resist will deter your rebellious ways?"

Kidar gave the others a questioning glance, but all they returned was sickened and horrified looks as even Kirby looked queasy.

"I'll take that as a yes. I suppose I should be thanking Mario for this, since it was he that made my control over Meta possible. I wished a chance to test out my abilities, but I was wary of attempting to invade someone's mind while they were conscious…but when Mario assisted in knocking Meta unconscious it allowed me to attempt a takeover.

At that Diddy flashed Mario a look, at which the plumber merely glared back.

"I admit I screwed up on that point. I attempted total control and Meta fought back. I was able to control the majority of his physical functions and even his speech…to an extent. His constant attempts to fight me resulted in the random gibberish he spouted in the early parts of our adventure, and it culminated in him breaking free soon after we arrived on Kong Island.

"After he was incapacitated I tried a different approach, instead of merely taking complete control instantly I slowly, insidiously worked my way into his mind, acting as an inner voice rather than a hostile entity…his resistance went down to nil, and I could guide him to take action how I pleased, while slowly working my way up to this moment where I could just squash his resistance to nothing and make him my slave. This is the same method I plan to use on you, so tell me…do you still want to fight?"

The others answered by charging. With a roar of anger and frustration they ran towards Mario and Kidar, who responded by pulling out their weapons, Mario's black hammer glistening threateningly and Kidar's swords appearing in a burst of violet in his hands. The two separated, forcing the Smashers to divide themselves up or risk leaving their backs exposed to the other.

Kirby initially ran for Kidar again, but a series of sharp slashes from Meta sent the puffball rolling away from the attack, his twin blades frantically deflecting the ferocious attack. Meta forced Kirby well away from the others, not giving him a second to counter attack until he was well away from Kidar…and alone.

Link went straight for Kidar, with Samus right behind him. Kidar blocked Link's initial thrust and then spun on his heel to avoid Samus's energy whip. Kidar stabbed at Link with one blade and when the swordsman barely deflected it with his shield Kidar stepped forward, too close for Link to attack and swung his other sword at Samus who back-flipped away.

Diddy and Falco lead the attack on Mario, although Raichu's bolt of lightning beat them to the plumber. He leaped over it and then avoided a wild swing from Diddy's guitar before catching Falco's snap-kicking foot in one powerful fist and throwing him to the ground. Raichu started to prepare a second jolt, but Diddy got in the way. Cursing at how everything spiraled out of control Raichu started to circle around the combatants.

Once Kirby was on the far side of Final Destination, Meta Knight stepped back. Kirby paused for a second, confused by the sudden stop. Testing Meta's reaction, Kirby started to move towards the others, and the Knight immediately got in the way, attacking ferociously. Frustrated, Kirby retaliated, hoping his two swords would give him an advantage against the swordsman.

It was soon clear that they did not. Meta was simply more skilled at swordplay and faster. Several times Kirby tried attacking, circling and blocking the whole time, but each strike Kirby unleashed was met and countered by Meta Knight, and it was obvious that he could not win in a battle of blades. He considered briefly, while frantically backpedaling to avoid Meta's abrupt cuts and stabs, about going for an aerial attack, with leaps and lunges, but he quickly tossed that idea aside. Meta's wings would give him a significant advantage in the air, and it was Kirby's good fortune that he had so far refused to take to it. Still, Kirby couldn't keep this up…

_Samus was terrified, more so than she had ever been before. Kidar was a friend…or had been, and to find out that he had been using her all along…it was awful. Samus hadn't experienced many betrayals in her solitary line of work and this one cut deep. As Kidar and Link dueled it was obvious Link was outmatched…Kidar's dual blades gave him more options and it was clear he knew how to use them. The only reason Link wasn't leaking organs was because Samus was keeping Kidar on the defensive…he could press one of them, and defend against both, but he couldn't keep an attack up. _

Samus shot off a burst of energy from her sole weapon. Kidar ducked under it and came up, slashing at Link's head. Link raised his shield high to block it, and groaned as Kidar kneed him in the stomach, the taller man having no problem hitting him there. Surprisingly Link kept his shield up; preventing Kidar from cutting down, so Kidar aimed his sword at Samus who was edging closer and a bolt of energy passed from his hand through the blade and at Samus.

She leapt over it and hit the ground rolling, ending up behind Link. Kidar grinned and then swung his second sword in a wide arc at Link's midsection, which Link managed to block with the Master Sword. Kidar pushed hard with both swords, but Link stood firm…until Kidar drove his knee between Link's legs.

Samus was reluctant to jump back into the fray…unlike Kidar and Link she had no means of blocking their attacks, and with the loss of her Powersuit, **again**, she was feeling very exposed. She used Link as cover as she snuck closer, hoping to leap out and zap Kidar before he could gut her, but when she saw Kidar's second sword swing she thought Link was done for and froze. When she heard the reassuring clang of metal she started to move forward again, until she saw a blur of movement, followed by an agonized yelp from Link. He fell to his knees, and Kidar pressed down on the shield, keeping it on Link's head, while propping him up with the second sword against Link's.

In a stunning burst of agility Kidar rolled over the shield, lifting his swords as he did so. As Kidar moved off the shield Link fell to his side and Kidar shot out of the roll with a wide sword swipe aimed at Samus, the momentum from the roll making the attack come painfully fast. She saw the shimmering gray metal arc towards her head and realized it was going to be over very quickly.

_Falco was furious. He went out of his way to help Mario defend his castle, even left his own world undefended…because he was certain if he had been there, Fox wouldn't have been captured and Andross wouldn't have been able to devastate Corneria. He did all that…only to find out the plumber was using__him…although technically he would have been using him anyway, using him to help defend the…no! That's different! Mario was in the wrong, Falco was in the right…just keep that in mind and he'll get through this._

As Diddy traded blows with Mario, Falco leapt to his feet and yanked out his pistol. When Mario easily used the hilt of his hammer to stop a guitar swing Falco jumped at him, firing furiously. Mario was hit several times, but he merely grunted as the bolts burned little holes into his skin before pushing Diddy's guitar back. With a single fluid motion he kicked Diddy away and slammed Falco in the side with the hammer. Both were sent flying.

Mario had no opportunity to enjoy the temporary reprieve as Raichu took opportunity to blast Mario with a bolt of charged lightning. The plumber was sent backwards, but he turned his fall into a roll, and then a flip and he was back on his feet. Raichu shot off another blast but Mario leapt away, shooting off a firebomb at Raichu. The mouse broke off his attack and rolled away, sparks landing and charring his fur from the small explosion as the ball hit the ground a foot or so away.

Falco was back on his feet before Raichu could counterattack and he jumped at Mario again, firing his pistol as the plumber raised the hammer to smack Falco down. The bolt burned into his white-gloved hand and with a hiss of pain Mario dropped the hammer. It clanked to the ground, making a far louder noise than one would expect from a hammer that size.

Falco hit the ground in front of Mario and quickly spun around, pocketing his gun and launching a roundhouse kick. Mario caught the foot again, hands moving almost faster than the eye and squeezed. Falco cried out in pain, but instead of snapping the thin leg Mario merely lifted Falco up, flipped him over and slammed him back to the ground…**hard.**

Falco let out a sharp gasp…and then lay motionless. Mario let go of Falco and turned towards Raichu, while watching Diddy out of the corner of his eye, as the chimp thought he was sneaking up on the plumber…

_Kirby was…frustrated. This whole adventure had turned out to be a massive trap and while he was used to fighting baddies and indeed he had fought Meta Knight multiple times in the past, he wasn't used to being set up like that. It was…not a pleasant feeling. If he wasn't so constantly cheerful, he might be feeling something akin to rage, but alas the strongest emotion he could summon at the moment was indignant frustration as Meta refused to let Kirby land a solid blow._

As Kirby frantically parried a trio of blazing fast slashes he realized that he didn't stand a chance in a battle of blades…so he decided to try something different. Jumping back he threw his Cutter at Meta Knight. The masked warrior easily batted it aside with a quick swipe and then shot forward, sword raised. As Kirby arced through the air he hurled his sword at the ground in front of Meta Knight. It stuck, forming a small obstacle in front of him.

Kirby hit the ground as Meta slowed to go around it…which put him right in the path of Kirby's hammer. It slammed into him in the side, forcing the metal mask off and sending Meta Knight skidding across Final Destination, sword held limply at his side, his face down.

_Link was, well…grumpy doesn't really cover it. His emotions were more like fury and extreme pain. He did however feel a strong sense of vindication, since Kidar had more than confirmed his suspicions. However whatever comfort he could hope to draw from that was easily overshadowed by the shame he felt at not unmasking Kidar. He wished he could blame the Triforce piece…it gave him enough of an indication to be suspicious, but all that suspicion did was ruin his credibility with the others. Yes…it would be easy to blame his failure to see and reveal Kidar for what he truly was on an object bestowed upon him by the Goddess's…but he knew the failing was his and his alone._

When Kidar went over him, through the blinding pain Link could only think of one thing: Samus was going to die. As he collapsed to the ground he managed to turn his head far enough to see Kidar's blade arc towards her head and as he squinted through his tears of pain he saw something rather unexpected.

At the last second Kidar turned the sword, smacking Samus with the flat of his blade. It didn't kill her, but the blow was powerful enough that it knocked her to the ground, and from the way she fell it was obvious she was unconscious.

Link's temporary relief shifted back towards anger as Kidar turned back towards him, smirking and swords raised. He didn't move towards Link, and growling with anger and embarrassment Link realized Kidar was letting Link get up. His face burned as he realized he was essentially at the mercy of Kidar.

He pushed past his pain and clambered to his feet, letting his Triforce piece rejuvenate him slightly. He held his sword and shield in front of him, prepared to show Kidar what was what…but first:  
"Why didn't you kill her?" Link asked, "Or do you have a soft spot for her?"

Kidar grinned at that, "Not nearly as big as one as you. Does Zelda know? Or is that a _secret_?"

Link stiffened but responded calmly enough.

"That's none of your business scum. So why didn't you? Don't have the guts?"

"I've got plenty of those Hero of Time," Kidar said, biting out the title like it meant nothing, "I would have thought you'd have guessed by now but since you're lacking in **wisdom **I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised: I don't want you dead. I want you alive, to serve me like Meta Knight."

Link's face hardened, "That's never going to happen! I'd rather die!"

"Well, now's your chance. Die now…or lose to me and face life as my slave. Which one do you think takes more _courage_?"

Link merely answered with a growl of rage and charged at Kidar, shield first. Kidar put his swords together in an X pattern and prevented Link's shield from actually hitting him but Link's momentum pushed him back anyways. Kidar tried to dig his feet in, but the smooth surface of Final Destination allowed Link to keep pushing him back. Link managed to push Kidar about twenty feet before Kidar dropped to the ground.

Link kept going, his booted feet narrowly missing Kidar's chest. Furiously Kidar swiped at Link but Link's continued forward trajectory caused him to miss. Link turned around once he realized Kidar was no longer in front of him and Kidar got back to his feet with an eerie grace.

Link readied his sword, but before he could attack he saw Kidar shifting his grip on his left-hand sword. He spun it around and curved his wrist, so the flat of the blade was resting against his forearm and the sides stuck out. The right-hand sword was held normally, but this shift was odd so Link was reluctant to start an attack, wary of a trick. His hesitation caused Kidar to smirk at him.

"Haven't seen this before have you? Well now's your chance to battle a swordsman who knows what he's doing. It should be a good learning experience…slave."  
Link snarled and charged at Kidar. Kidar sidestepped the initial thrust and stabbed at Link, his attack was blocked by the shield. Link chopped down at Kidar and the violet-haired man raised his arm, catching the attack on the blade resting on his forearm. Link smiled at that, figuring that Kidar was holding the sword like that to better defend himself. The Bearer of the Triforce of Courage charged again, deflecting another stab from Kidar and having his own strike blocked by Kidar's makeshift shield.

The duel continued that way for several more passes, with the aggressor shifting between the two, but no significant progress was made. Eventually Link stepped back from Kidar, feeling that his opponent was playing with him. Link may not have been wise enough to earn the Triforce of Wisdom, but he was no fool…he saw in the past that Kidar was good, most likely better than him with the sword and was probably hiding a good deal of his ability. But Link had something Kidar did not…the Triforce of Courage and now he was getting the hang of it.

Closing his eyes Link concentrated on his sword. His piece of the Triforce lit up and bright golden waves of energy traveled up from his hand to his sword, and the Master Sword glowed brighter. Kidar gave him a questioning glance, but before he could figure out what Link was doing the Hylian jabbed his sword forward, a beam of blade-shaped energy shooting out of it at Kidar.

Kidar stepped to the side as soon as Link's sword shot forward, but the beam came out fast enough for it skim across his belly. His black armor held, but a thin score traced from one gold-trimmed end to the other across his midsection. Kidar glared at Link…and the Hero of Time jumped at him, sword held high.

Kidar blocked the jumping attack with his normally held blade…and Link found the true reason behind Kidar's strange grip on the second sword. With considerable strength Kidar whipped the sword from its position on his forearm to a brutal slash that Link barely managed to catch on his shield.

As Link stepped back he saw Kidar still held the sword oddly, it was almost backward, the blade pointing back at the violet-eyed mage but as Kidar stepped forward, blocking Link's hesitant strike with his right-handed sword he repeatedly slashed with the left-handed one, its odd trajectory and surprising speed causing Link to rapidly move, too unsure he was in his ability to use his shield to block it…and Link realized that even with his Triforce giving him strength, he was going to lose…everything.

_Diddy couldn't explain his feelings. Mario and Kidar had fought by his side for about a week and in that week they and everyone else had grown to mean a great deal to him. To find out this was all some kind of trick to force him to join an army bent on conquering every world known…was disheartening. Yet while Kidar was clearly an evil being who must be stopped, Diddy was having a hard time fighting Mario and he could sense the plumber was holding back as well…there could still be time to prevent this from turning into a bloodbath._

Raichu loosed another bolt at Mario and Mario retaliated by yanking out his golden cape and deflecting the attack to Raichu's left, the burst of energy causing Raichu to jump. He glared at Mario, sparks crackling around him.

"Why didn't you just hit me with it? I know you're capable of aiming it that well."  
"Do you think I ignored you the past week? I know you can absorb electricity…no need to make this battle any harder," Mario said.

Before either of those two could strike Diddy flung an orange grenade at Mario. The plumber smacked it away with an open palm before crouching down and grabbing his hammer. A sudden leap later and Raichu's hastily shot bolt missed as Mario brought his hammer crashing down in a mighty blow towards Diddy.

The chimp cartwheeled away, springing out of it while swinging his guitar at Mario. Mario ducked under the star-shaped instrument but Diddy's foot slammed into his chin, knocking his head back. Mario managed to recover quickly though, as Diddy was not very strong and punched the monkey in the chest.

The blow was powerful enough to slam Diddy to the ground and Mario brought the hammer crashing down a moment later, forcing Diddy to roll to avoid it. Diddy leapt back to his feet a second later and brought his guitar around again. Mario smacked it away with his hammer but then leaned back as Diddy fired a peanut at close range, the nut skimming past his ear. Mario growled and loosed a quick burst of fire from his hand, the beam slamming into Diddy and knocking him to the ground, shirt smoldering.

Mario hopped over to Diddy before Raichu could attack, Mario's determination to finish them off one at a time rather frightening since Falco was out and it looked like Diddy was about to go down as well. Mario raised his hammer up high…just as a laser bolt skimmed past his nose, causing him to hiss in pain and spin towards Falco, who had his sniper rifle out, a small grin tugging at the corner of his beak as he kneeled.

Mario glared at him before breaking off his attack on the prone Diddy and leaping the twenty feet towards Falco in a single bound. As Mario's feet left the ground though, Diddy's tail curled around his ankle and the chimp was carried along with the plumber. When Mario hit the ground of front of Falco he brought his hammer down in a blow meant to split Falco's skull and it would have, if not for two things.

First, as Mario came to a sudden stop Diddy whipped up. He used that momentum to slam his guitar into the back of Mario's head with amazing force, enough that Mario's next strike was both off-kilter and did not have as much power behind it.

Second, Falco raised his rifle in an attempt to block the blow, which for the most part it did. However the strength behind the blow was enough to knock the rifle out of Falco's hand and send the bird rolling.

Angrily and in pain, Mario kicked his leg out, sending Diddy shooting in front of him, but he refused to let go…which Mario was counting on, because as Mario brought his leg back Diddy came flying back with it…and right into Mario's gloved fist.

Diddy's tail let go as several teeth were knocked out of his mouth and Diddy went skidding to the ground. Raichu shot off a bolt of lightning at Mario's back, but Mario spun around and shot off a burst of fire that negated it. Mario then spun back in time to catch both of Falco's wings as he brought them down in a brutal overhead chop, the hammer falling from his grasp again.

Mario spun the two of them around so Raichu wouldn't be so eager to attack but Falco managed to land a duo of kicks into Mario's stomach as he held him. Mario retaliated by headbutting Falco in the beak, knocking his head back and then backing off.

Diddy dashed towards Mario's rear-right as Raichu ran towards his rear-left while Falco scooped up his sniper rifle and faced him, the trio forming a vague triangle around him. Mario quickly looked at all three as they aimed weapons, or in Raichu's case, electricity at him.

"Come on Mario, don't do this," Diddy said pleadingly, his eyes beseeching, but his guitar and popgun unflinching, "You can't seriously want to help Kidar?"

"I DO!" Mario yelled, "Why is that so hard to understand?"  
"Because he's evil!" Falco said, "And you're not!"

"Why do you think I'm not? Why is he evil and I misguided?"  
"Because you're _good_!" Diddy said  
"I'm tired of being good! I've been the hero longer than most of you have been alive and have nothing to show for it! I want to be the villain!"  
"You don't get tired of being a good person!" Raichu yelled back, "It's who you are! You can't just switch sides because the other one is shinier!"

"Apparently…I can," Mario said, hands starting to glow, "I made my decision and you've made yours. I want power and I want respect…and I'm not getting enough of that as it is, so if I have to help Kidar, so be it!"  
With that Mario hurled a massive ball of fire at Raichu. The roiling orange and red sphere flew towards Raichu incredibly fast but the mouse leapt out of the way of the initial blast. The backwash from the explosion as it hit the ground was enough to send him skidding across the ground.

At that instant both Diddy and Falco shot off their weapons. Mario sidestepped both shots and lunged towards Falco, punching him hard in the stomach. Falco coughed up blood, but managed to spin his rifle around enough to clock Mario in the jaw with the butt of his rifle. Mario spat out some blood and then grabbed the rifle as Falco brought it around again and slammed the leaping Diddy in the face.

Diddy, who had been behind Mario and was hoping to land a surprise blow on the plumber was caught completely off guard as Mario ripped the rifle out of Falco's grip and spun around, hitting Diddy hard enough to cause him to lose consciousness temporarily.

Mario tossed the rifle aside and then grunted as Falco kicked him in the chest. Mario retaliated again by punching Falco, once in the chest and then two quick jabs to the head that knocked him senseless, Mario's greater strength and speed making close-range combat a guaranteed win against nearly any foe. Mario was already tasting victory…but Mario had forgotten that he was fighting three.

As Mario turned towards Raichu, the mouse unleashed a massive bolt of lightning, the blue and gold arcing towards him like starving serpents. His blue eyes, the pupils tinged with red fire widened as the serpents burrowed into his body. There was a second of extreme pain, and then the full force of the blast hit and Mario was sent flying.

He shot through the air, propelled for at least fifteen feet and when he hit the ground he skidded a good deal more…so much in fact that he was soon at the edge of the stage. He struggled to regain control but another spark of electricity jittered through his body and he twitched…right off the edge. He fell, gloved hands scrabbling frantically for the edge, but as he vanished from sight not a sound escaped his lips. He fell into the abyss, silently…

Kirby frowned slightly as he hurried to pick up his weapons. The closest was his sword and he plucked it out of the ground quickly, noticing that the small dent it had made as it plunged into the ground did not repair itself…clearly with the destruction of Giga Bowser and his crystal, whatever powered the reparations of Final Destination had vanished.

The sounds of battle reached Kirby and he shook himself out of his contemplative stupor. A small moan was heard as he ran towards his Cutter, which was lying farther away than he had thought. He turned to see Meta twitch slightly before falling still. Not for the first time Kirby was struck by how similar Meta Knight looked to Kirby when his mask was off and with his eyes closed there was no hint of the brutal control Kidar had over the poor honorable warrior. Kirby hoped that when this was all over, Meta could be freed.

A pained scream was heard and Kirby shook himself again and moved to his Cutter, picking it up. He didn't know whether the scream came from one of his friends or one of his new enemies…considering they were all his friends less than an hour ago made the new thought rather depressing. He held both the Cutter and his sword, having put away his hammer and looked at the fighters, trying to decide where he could do the most good. As he watched, Mario was hit by Raichu's attack and sent off the stage. Kirby shuddered, regretting that that action had to be taken but acknowledging its necessity.  
He turned then towards Kidar and Link and saw Samus lying on the ground. Kidar clearly outmatched Link, so he began to move towards that fight when he heard a faint whooshing noise behind him.

Turning he was knocked to the ground by a maskless, swordless Meta Knight. Meta quickly landed several open-palm strikes that knocked the blades from Kirby's small arm/hand things. Kirby gasped in shock as Meta's violet eyes flared and he held Kirby down with his gloved hands.

Kirby managed to get one his hands in position and punched Meta in the mouth. When that failed to get him off Kirby unleashed a blistering series of jabs that quickly weakened Meta's hold and with a pointy kick Kirby managed to get out of Meta's grip.

The two faced each other, Kirby panting slightly and with a hard look of determination on his pink face. Meta merely looked blank, the only sign that he was even paying attention was the pulsating glow in his eyes that moved in time with breathing…but not Meta's breaths.

_Meta was lost. All he could see were walls and fog, both of which were tinged with violet. He walked through the maze that led nowhere, determined to find something…but what it was he did not know. He could not remember how he got here, nor could he discover a way out. The violet walls extended to all sides of the horizon, curving and twisting and throbbing in ways walls shouldn't be able to. The fog pervaded his thoughts and made him sluggish. He was determined to do…something, but even his resolve was fading in this terrible hell. He remembered Kidar and Mario revealing their betrayal, and some kind of conversation, but even the words were blurred…he could not remember. Occasionally he could hear screams and his body would twitch in odd directions and movements. At first he resisted the twitches, but he soon forgot why and simply allowed it to happen. Soon he forgot why he was even moving and he slowly came to a stop…as the fog surrounded him._

Meta suddenly dashed forward, his pointy feet kicking out at Kirby. Kirby blocked the first two kicks with his hands but Meta built on the momentum of the attack and managed to throw out a powerful third kick that knocked Kirby to the ground.  
Meta leapt up to deal a punch to Kirby but the puffball rolled and Meta's hand slammed into the ground hard enough for blood to stain his gloves. Despite the clearly agonizing pain he should be feeling Meta was silent and slowly turned to Kirby…just as Kirby socked him in the side of the head with his hammer again.

Meta rolled and lay limply. Kirby quickly scooped up his blades and put them away and cautiously walked towards Meta, hammer held at the ready. He stood over Meta and gave him a probing poke with his foot. When there was no movement Kirby nodded and turned to join the others.

While Kirby was dealing with Meta Knight, Kidar was outmatching Link in speed, style and strength. Link was bleeding from a dozen minor cuts, while Kidar's armor had even repaired its earlier damage. Link's Triforce piece was glowing fiercely, granting him increased physical abilities, even healing him at a greatly increased rate…but it didn't matter, Kidar had Link beaten…this clash of the swords was over, and they both knew it.

As Kidar easily parried a half-hearted strike from Link he flashed a predatory grin at the panting warrior.

"You don't seem like you're really trying," Kidar said, adopting a tone of sympathy, "Perhaps you want to serve me more than you think?"  
Link responded with a roar of rage and unleashed a brutal series of powerful overhead strikes…that Kidar easily dodged or avoided, halting the attack with a painful smack to the ear with the flat of his blade. Link was dazed and Kidar took advantage of that to jab at Link, opening up a few small punctures on the Hero of Time.

"I was expecting more from you but it seems all you're good for is beating Ganondorf. When faced with a legitimate threat, you're worthless."

Link growled and managed to bat away a subsequent strike from Kidar, but rather than pressing the attack Link backed up, his Triforce of Courage slowly but steadily dimming. Kidar raised a hand, the grin widening on his face but before he could do anything a brutal blow caught him in the back of the head and he was knocked to his knees, the purple sphere that was forming in his hand dissipating.

"Do you guys ever stop talking?" Samus said, lowering her foot, "Sheesh, as soon you start winning you stop trying. You bad guys really need to work on that."

"You're conscious?" Kidar snarled, rolling away from a hastily thrown stab from Link and leaping back to his feet, sheathing the left-handed sword, "That blow should have kept you out a lot longer!"  
"Apparently you didn't hit me hard enough," Samus said, wincing slightly as a throb of pain shot through her head, "And now you're going to pay for it!"

She hurled a beam of energy from her Paralyzer at Kidar. Not even deigning to dodge he raised his violet aura covered left hand and deflected the beam. Link furiously lunged at Kidar and the mage casually parried the sword with his own before waving his hand at Link. A ball of violet energy slowly separated itself from his hand and floated toward Link.

"What is this?" Link demanded, stepping back and slashing at the ball as it moved towards him.

His sword cut through the ball easily and the two halves dropped to the ground with a sickening splat. He started to move towards Kidar as the swordsman ducked under a violent kick from Samus, but something grabbed his leg. Startled he looked down at what had been the halves of the ball…they had melted to form a dark violet ooze that was sticking to his boots and holding him in place. He struggled to take a step forward and his leg came out of the ooze, while it made a disturbing schluping sound but a skeletal and completely black hand shot out of the puddle and grabbed his leg again. More hands erupted from it, holding him in place and pulling down.

"What the Mother Brain?" Samus said, seeing the ooze as she frantically leapt away from Kidar's precisely thrown sword swipes.

Kidar just laughed as she retaliated with a yellow stun bolt from her gun, the attack fizzling out when it met with a pulse of power from Kidar.

"Just a little spell I've been working on to keep you all immobilized. It works using some of my energy and by creating a portal to where the souls of your beaten foes rest. Given some measure of form they'll do their best to hold you all but they shouldn't be strong enough to kill you…hopefully," Kidar said the last with a grin, "I think I might have a bit of a talent for necromancy? What do you think Samus? Should I take a page out M.C.'s book and revive Ridley for you?"

"Don't you DARE!" Samus said firing off another stun bolt.

Kidar stopped it the same way but then had to quickly dodge the yellow whip stretching out towards him. The whip skimmed past his shoulder, sending painful jolts of electricity shooting down his arm and almost causing him to lose his grip on the sword. Frowning he jerked his hand up, already glowing with the energy to blast Samus to the ground…when he realized she had vanished.

Link attempted to hack at the hands, but while the Master Sword easily cut through them, they simply returned and pulled down again. After a few seconds of resisting he fell to his knees, his sword proving useless against the constant presence of the hands. He thought about using a bomb but before he could reach for one another hand shot out and grabbed his arm, a second soon clutched at his hand. The process was repeated on his other arm.

Their touch was surprisingly cold, but weak. They seemed to want to squeeze, to end Link's life but the most they could manage was a firm grip. The magic holding them in this dimension gave them the strength to hold Link…but not to harm him.

Surprised by Samus's maneuver Kidar didn't move for an instant…which was plenty of time for Samus to land a solid kick on his back after she had flipped behind him. He stumbled forward, the whip reaching out to lick at the back of his legs before he managed to turn around.

"You're quick without that Suit, but do you really think you stand a chance against me?" Kidar snarled.

"Oh please," Samus said mockingly, waving her whip casually as she tensed, "I've faced down far worse than you. I've killed things that devoured worlds…a swordsman and some fancy tricks aren't going to stop me."

"Yes but you did that with your Suit and far more abilities than you have now," Kidar reminded her, holding his sword in front of himself, "And I am not some simple beast waiting for you find my weak spot…I've spent the last several days traveling with you and I know all your moves, both with and without that Suit."

"I highly doubt that," Samus said, although her voice wavered and her Paralyzer trembled.

"A brave showing?" Kidar questioned, "Admirable, but worthless in the end. Samus, without your suit you're pathetic…the weakest of all the fighters here. Fragile…delicate…soft…useless."

As Kidar spoke he moved his left hand in a slow, hypnotizing pattern, wiggling the fingers ever so often. A violet line stretched from his hand to Samus who began to stop moving, eyes half-closing. Her mouth moved and she murmured, but as Kidar continued to speak she moved less and less.

"Not true…can't be…I'm not…delicate," Samus said in a whisper.

"But you are!" Kidar said, grin widening, "But don't worry…in my hands I will make you better, stronger, faster…hardened. You'll be a true warrior again, as you were meant to be…in my control."

"SAMUS! Don't-" Link started to yell before an icy hand covered his mouth, the acrid smell was less like death than he would have guessed, more sterile…as if all life had been _scrubbed _away, rather than allowed to rot. Link struggled but even as he realized physical effort would be useless, a strange burning sensation began to build inside of him.

Samus blinked when Link yelled her name, but the line connecting her to Kidar's hand thickened and she became dazed again. She saw a flash of pink behind Kidar and she felt a strange urge to warn him. Her mouth started to open…

But as Kirby leapt up, blades aimed at Kidar, the mage spun around and blasted Kirby away with a pulse of energy. He smirked, before his eyes widened and he spun back, frantically trying to reestablish the link between himself and Samus but she dodged the bolt of violet energy. She angrily waved her whip at Kidar and her voice was more furious than he had ever heard from her before.

"You dare try and hypnotize me…you're scum! You're going to die!"

"You can't stop me alone," Kidar told her, "You don't stand a chance…your moves are all useless against me!"

Before either could respond a golden light flared up. Spinning, both Kidar and Samus observed Link's Triforce piece blasting the hands with a harsh and unyielding light. Their silent agony was more unnerving than any amount of screaming would have done, but the sight of Link climbing to his feet, Master Sword aglow was more terrifying indeed.

A sudden noise behind Kidar revealed that Kirby was on his feet again and he seemed just as determined to kill him as the other two. They had him surrounded…but despite his desperate situation, the only expression he revealed was a small smile.

"You have just begun to see the depths of our abilities, demon," Link said, his wounds, while not gone, seemed more…insignificant as the Triforce of Courage gave him strength to overcome his pain, "And now you shall die!"

"Fine then," Kidar said, "Show me your moves."

The three charged.

_Raichu was…relieved. The whole journey there had been a vague unease that permeated the group. They all felt it, although Link felt it more acutely than most. Something seemed off, but at the time they had all wrote it off as having this many villains conspiring against them. But now…now he knew it was because of Kidar and Mario. This moment, this battle was the most important one he, or anyone else here would participate in. Regardless of the outcome more conflicts would ensue, but for some reason he knew that this would decide the fate of things to come. Whoever won this battle would shape all the worlds…and it looked like Mario and Kidar were going to lose._

Raichu ran over to Diddy, shaking him out of his stupor.

"What?" Diddy said, dazedly as Raichu smiled, "Where's Mario?"

Diddy looked around the stage, first noticing Mario's glistening hammer lying threateningly on the ground, and then Kidar in combat with the others.

"I got him. I zapped him off the platform…,"  
"You killed him?" Diddy asked in shock.

Raichu looked pained and his eyes grew moist, "NO! Well…kind of. I didn't do it on purpose, but if he is still alive then he's tumbling through the void."

"Geez Raichu, death might have been better…" Diddy said, looking at the shifting dimension around them.

"Let's check on Falco," Raichu snapped, turning away from Diddy and dashing to Falco who was starting to stir.

"Raichu I didn't…" Diddy started to say before shaking his head and getting up…and suddenly wincing as the beating he took from Mario hit him full force. Fortunately nothing was broken, although as the stabbing pains in his mouth indicated, several teeth had been violently knocked out. He pocketed his gun and guitar and staggered over towards Falco and Raichu, feeling slightly better as he moved.

"Guh…wuh..huh?" Falco said, as Raichu helped to his feet.

"Mario's gone. The others need help with Kidar. Come on," Raichu said, while glaring at Diddy, as if to dare him to say otherwise.

"Oh…kay," Falco said, as he stumbled forward, "Couldn't I just take a nap or something?"

While his head began to clear he picked up his rifle off the ground and slung it over his back.

"No," Diddy said, as the last remnants of confusion left his head, "We should go he-?!"

A sudden noise stopped Diddy from finishing his sentence. The three looked around in confusion as a terrible grating noise echoed from beneath their feet, and the area of the stage they were on started to crack. Confused, they looked down…as a white gloved fist **punched **out a large chunk of Final Destination, a scant three feet from Raichu, sending shards of shattered metal all over the place.

The three dived to the ground to avoid the shrapnel, although Falco picked up a long slash along his thigh. Panicked they looked at each other as the fist retracted from its hole and a faint sliding noise could be heard through it.

"No way!" Diddy said in shock, "He's beneath the stage?"  
"Idiot!" Raichu said, "I'm an idiot! With that cape of his he can fly!"

"What'll we do?" Falco asked?"

As if to answer his question the fist shot out again, blowing apart another chunk of the stage just a few feet from their faces. They shut their eyes as the shrapnel shot over head.

"We can't stay here…we gotta move!" Raichu ordered, following his own advice by running away from Mario's fist.

The others scrambled to their feet and began running away from Mario…and away from Kidar. As their feet pounded along Final Destination, the fist opened into a palm…and fire began pouring out of it.

Dozens of small fireballs of the size of pebbles shot out of the hand and in the general direction of the three fleeing Smashers. Most missed because the owner of said hand couldn't see what he was shooting at, but several came very close and multiple times in their mad dash away they were set on fire, smoldering until one of the others put the flames out.

Raichu came to a stop at the edge of the platform, with only the void greeting him. The fire stopped as well, and the hand retracted.

"What do we do now?" Falco said, looking over the edge hesitantly.

Diddy answered by lowering his head down to peer to beneath the platform. He had to stretch out pretty far to get a good look and Raichu and Falco moved closer to him, in case he fell and needed to be grabbed.

"Geez!" Diddy's voice said, slightly muffled from the angle in which he was speaking, "Beneath it is…well, you gotta see!"

He pulled himself back up and looked at the others, looking slightly excited.

"What did you see?" Raichu asked.

"There's like a huge maze of scaffolding and wires and stuff beneath the stage! It's crazy!"

"Did you see Mario?"

"No…he was probably hiding."

"He wants us to come after him," Raichu said, "That's why he stopped punching through the stage."  
"But that's his element…with his jumping ability and cape, we won't stand a chance against him in that kind of environment!" Falco stated.

"You're wrong," Diddy responded while shaking his head, "It's MY environment…Mario is going to regret ever retreating there. Let's go!"

Diddy didn't allow for anymore conversation as he lowered himself down the side before grabbing onto a nearby metal beam and climbing towards the center. Raichu and Falco looked at each other, shrugged and then carefully lowered themselves over the edge, quickly grabbing the same beam so as not to fall off…and their mouths dropped in shock as they saw the veritable jungle stretched before them.

Beneath the massive stage a forest of scaffolding and girders laced the area, with wires of varying thickness connecting them. They were all a rusty red color and in the center of the maze was a thick cylinder, the one that had initially held the crystal that powered the platform's regenerative properties.

Despite their initial fear, Raichu and Falco soon found that travel along the metal beams and girders was relatively simple. They were plenty of things to hold onto and so many of the wires and scaffoldings were strewn about that there was almost no danger of falling.

Diddy moved easily through the framework, his super chimp powers of being able to climb very well allowed him easy access across the entire area and he soon arrived at one of the holes Mario made. After giving a quick look around the frames he beckoned to the other two, who managed to reach him with a minimum of difficulty.

"Where is he?" Falco said, clutching the nearby girders _very _tightly.

"Over here," Diddy said, moving towards the center to peer around the cylinder in the middle, "But I don't know which side he'll be on. Raichu, you go to the other side and Falco you watch to make sure he doesn't sneak up on us."  
The others nodded and moved into position. Diddy paused, clutching tightly to the beams around the side of the cylinder while Raichu mirrored him on the other side. Falco pulled out his rifle and aimed it beneath the cylinder, figuring if Mario was going to be sneaky he'd pop up there.

Diddy looked at Raichu, pulling out his popgun while Raichu began to crackle. Both silently counted off before leaping around the cylinder on opposite sides and aiming at…absolutely nothing. Mario was nowhere to found in the maze of girders.

"He's gone!" Diddy said, turning around to rejoin Falco and Raichu, "He must have fallen or-"

Before he could finish that sentence there was a sudden whooshing noise and a bright red gold and blue blur shot up from beneath the wires and beams, shattering them like brittle twigs as it crashed into Falco and crushed him against the bottom side of Final Destination.

Diddy and Raichu snarled as they ran/climbed towards Falco who was squirming desperately to avoid Mario's fist, with Raichu getting a gash along his side from one of the shredded girders Mario had slammed through. With a sudden jerk, Falco managed to move his head enough to avoid Mario's punch as it hit the stage, leaving a deep indent. He grunted in annoyance before pulling his fist back again, while holding Falco down…er…up with his other hand on the bird's chest.

Raichu hung back once he got close to Mario, afraid that shocking the plumber would hurt Falco. Diddy cursed, realizing that his gun would be useless before shoving it back on his side and jumping onto Mario's back. Diddy immediately began scratching and biting, his long thin fingers reaching for Mario's eyes. Before he could cause any serious damage Mario slammed his head back, clocking Diddy in the face and sending the chimp falling.

He hit a girder and slid off a wire before landing on a piece of scaffolding near the bottom of the bizarre mess of metal. Mario turned his attention back towards Mario, but the moment of distraction was enough for Falco to move his leg into a position to slam his knee into Mario's stomach. Mario grunted and as his grip loosened Falco kneed him again. Angrily Mario shifted his grip up to Falco's neck and flung him down, where Falco spent several panicked seconds flailing before crashing into Diddy and causing the chunk of scaffolding they were both on to tilt dangerously.

Unfortunately for Mario, while sending Diddy and Falco down prevented them from attacking him, it left him open for the extremely powerful electric blast that Raichu shot at him from behind.

The attack was intended to fry Mario's body, maybe cook his internal organs and kill him, or at the very least incapacitate him with the shock. Two things however prevented that from happening. First and foremost the massive quantity of metal around them was a good conductor of electricity…but since Mario wasn't actually touching any of that because of the flight his cape granted him all the metal did was cause the blast to diverge and weaken. Additionally what did hit mostly hit his cape, which deflected the majority of the blast harmlessly. All that managed to get through was a bit of stinging pain…just enough to make Mario angry as he spun around.

Raichu leapt off the girder he was on as a ball of fire erupted from Mario's hand, melting the metal he had been standing on. He shot off a quick bolt at Mario, which connected but was too weak to do any serious damage. Brow furrowing Mario dived at Raichu, tearing through the girders and obstacles in his way, while the mouse frantically leapt from beam to beam, hanging on by a hair.

Just before Mario reached Raichu there was a sickening crack and a terrified yelp. Looking down he saw Falco and Diddy sliding off the edge off the scaffolding they had landed on. The destruction Mario had wreaked on the girders had weakened the scaffolding's hold underneath the stage and now the wires holding it in place were beginning to snap. Diddy and Falco were frantically running up the almost ninety degree scaffolding, digging their fingers/feather things into the grating, but they were being battered by falling beams and girders.

Cursing Mario broke off his pursuit of Raichu and dived towards Falco and Diddy. As soon as they saw him coming they panicked and tried to scrabble up the scaffolding towards a ground from which they could fight on, while Raichu jumped/fell towards them in the hopes to beat Mario there.

He didn't.

Mario flew right on down, plucked Falco and Diddy right off the scaffolding as it fell into the void and before the two could start struggling he clocked their heads together, sending them for a loop. Raichu started charging up a blast but Mario blew right past him and headed for the "roof", with Falco and Diddy dangling in his absurdly strong arms. With a pained grunt Mario slammed head-first into the stage, crashing through and emerging on other side amidst a pile of shredded stage, thirty-feet away from where Kidar was.

Mario tossed Diddy and Falco to the ground where they moaned slightly before ceasing all movement. Mario winced then as the pain hit him. His head may have been hard, but Final Destination was built to last. He regained his control quickly though and Mario then turned his attention to the hole he had created. And waited.

He didn't have to wait long.

Raichu leapt out of the hole, crackling with barely contained energy. Mario lowered his hands, fire surrounding them but before either could attack Raichu spoke up.

"Why'd you save them?"

Mario sighed with frustration, but his eyes remained hard.

"We told you…we want you all alive. You're worthless dead."

"Is that really the reason Mario, or are you not as evil as you claim to be?"

Mario's eyes widened slightly, but he showed no other signs to the question.

"You're really determined to prove me wrong, aren't you?"

"I have faith you'll make the right decision," Raichu said, quite determinedly.

"We'll see…" Mario said, raising his hands.

"Yes…we will," Raichu said, unleashing his electricity.

_Kidar was overjoyed. It was all working out how they had planned. So they were putting up more resistance than he would have initially guessed…in the end that was a good thing, it meant they would be more valuable to the team once he finished…persuading them. The Triforce bearer was especially interesting…the skills and abilities he gained from it seemed random, but useful. The battle would soon end, and finally the first phase of Kidar's plan would conclude and he could begin training his small army…_

Kidar blocked the sword strikes from Kirby and Link, but Samus's foot managed to slip through his guard and crash into his gut. He grunted but didn't stumble. Instead as Kirby and Link pulled back for a second attack he whipped his swords around, slapping Link's sword away from its stabbing position and knocking Kirby's Cutter out of his grip. Samus tried to land a second kick but Kidar twisted out of the way of her foot and slammed her in the face with his elbow.

She let out a mild yelp and stumbled back, one hand clutching at her cheek, while Link charged forward, yelling and sword aglow. Right before he attacked he noticed how close Samus was and the glow faded as he aborted his planned Spin Attack. Instead he smashed his shield at Kidar who simply dropped to the ground and swept Link's legs out from under him. Right as Kidar started to get up Kirby slashed at him from behind, catching him a powerful strike in his chest armor and sending Kidar back to the ground.

Kidar spun around to face Kirby, his long cloak flapping out and obscuring Link's vision as the Hylian tried to get back up. A quick series of sword strikes later and Kirby's other blade was knocked out of his hand. Kidar raised his sword but before he could strike again he heard a crackle of electricity and he dived to the side as Samus's whip slashed through the air, an inch above his head.

Link ran towards Kidar but leapt back as Kidar kicked out with his feet where Link's stomach would have been, before flipping back to a standing position. He threw his right-hand sword at Kirby as the puffball ran for one his blades, the point stabbing into the ground right next to his pointy feet. He then shot off a burst of purple energy at Samus and knocked her back.

Kirby ran around the sword and picked up his blades. Kidar stepped back as Link slashed at him, laughing all the while.

"What are you laughing about?" Link demanded, blocking Kidar's counter-strike with his shield.

"You really think you can win?" Kidar said, raising his hand as Kirby ran at him again, causing his right-hand sword to vanish and reappear into his hand just in time to deflect his attack.

"I think we have a good chance," Samus said, staying back as Kidar engaged in a graceful duel against Link and Kirby. A few quick slashes and parries were all that were exchanged before Kidar spoke again.

"You might…but your friends aren't faring as well against Mario," Kidar said, back-flipping away from Link and Kirby.

The three turned towards where they could hear the sounds of combat and saw Diddy and Falco unmoving, and Raichu battling Mario alone.

"Ganon's black bones!" Link cursed, "Samus, we got this…go help them!"

"What? You don't think I can-" Samus started to say before Link cut her off.

"Please…they need you more than I do."

Kidar grinned as Samus's face fell…but a second later she had her normal hard look in her eyes, made all the more intimidating thanks to the darkening bruise along her cheek.

"Alright…but don't you lose."  
"No problem," Link said cockily, turning his attention back to Kidar, who seemed perfectly fine with allowing them time to plan.

Samus quickly ran off to join Raichu against Mario, while Link and Kirby readied their weapons for Kidar, who let out a protracted yawn and stretch before eyeing them lazily.

"Are you done now? Shall we finish this?"  
"Thought you'd never ask."

Kirby and Link ran…for one last charge.

_Mario was…happy. He was happy despite the fact he was performing actions he would have condemned just a short while ago, or perhaps __**because **__he was doing those things. For the first time in his life, he had taken control over his life. No more was he merely reacting to the whims of those around him…now he was fighting for something __**he **__wanted, something that benefited him. Maybe in the future he'd lament turning his back on everything he'd stood for…but looking at it now he regretted nothing. In his mind everything he stood for was for other people that only cared because of how he helped them…they offered nothing of meaning or value to his life and were a drain on his potential. What he was doing now was for the best…and __**nothing **__anyone else said would change his mind._

Raichu unleashed a truly massive bolt of electricity, the white mixing with the yellow to form a writhing mass of power that snaked towards Mario hungrily, slicing through the air almost faster than you could blink.

Mario retaliated by unleashing a much narrower beam of orange and red. It was almost completely a cylinder of pure magma that broiled with violent intensity and incredible strength. The air around it steamed as the vapor in it was annihilated on its course towards Raichu attack.

Both met well before reaching their target and immediately created a massive explosion of energy that knocked both Raichu and Mario down, the two attacks viciously beating on each other until both were rendered useless. The energy created was soon reduced to merely light that served to temporarily blind both of them.

Raichu reacted quickly though, using his Quick Attack to move away from his initial position, hoping to circle around Mario before he could see again…but as his vision cleared he saw…nothing. Mario was gone.

He looked around frantically, worried that he had misjudged Mario's position and had missed him, but he was nowhere to be seen. Seriously confused, Raichu was starting to think Mario had vanished…until a fireball crashed into the ground next to him, covering his face with sparks.

Looking up he spotted Mario floating ten feet above him. Cursing Raichu dived to avoid a second fireball and shot off a bolt of lightning at Mario. The plumber flipped his cape in the direction of the bolt and it bounced off the golden material, zapping Raichu with his own attack. It didn't hurt very much as he absorbed the electricity, but it held him still long enough for Mario to hit him with a fireball.

Raichu screamed as the fire burned into his side, scorching a circle of fur off. Before Mario could capitalize on the pain, the mouse had leapt to his feet, hurriedly dodging the third and fourth shot. Mario evaded another bolt and struck back, but Raichu managed to use his Quick Attack to run beneath Mario.

Startled Mario spun around expecting Raichu to be behind him, but he saw nothing. Confused he hesitated for a second…which gave Raichu the time to use a very rarely used ability of his. A thick and dark thundercloud formed over him, and by extension Mario.

As Raichu prepared to call forth the massive bolt of power he had summoned, a sharp crack of thunder sounded. Mario looked up…just as a giant bolt of electricity stabbed downwards.

Mario blurred. The bolt barely missed hitting his arm as he flew away from it…but the bolt didn't avoid Raichu who was right in its path. He was wreathed in pure electrical energy and for a moment it seemed like it would be too much for Raichu to handle. Mario covered his eyes temporarily with his arm…which allowed Raichu to shoot off the excess energy in another bolt of lightning that crashed into Mario and knocked him out of the sky.

He hit the ground hard and bounced. Raichu started to move forward, but the sudden drain of using so many powerful attacks so quickly caused him to stagger and fall. As he struggled to get up, Mario clambered to his feet, smoking slightly.

The plumbers clothing was scorched and chunks of exposed skin were burned from the voltage. He took a few hesitant steps forwards…that became more definite as he neared his fallen foe. Raichu could barely move…but Mario was still going strong, in spite of the damage. As Mario approached Raichu the mouse tensed for one, hopefully not, final action.

As Mario raised his hand to deal a powerful strike to Raichu there was the sound of an electrical discharge and Mario arched his back as a powerful current held him in place.

At first Raichu thought he had attacked, but then he realized he still had the energy he had planned on using on Mario. Then…who?

A blue leg slashed out and hit Mario brutally in the chest, knocking him away. A second energy shot emerged from Samus's Paralyzer but Mario rolled away before flipping back to his feet.

Raichu moved away as Samus and Mario edged closer to each other. Mario had unnatural strength and speed…but Samus had that whole Chozo Blood thing so she was strong as well. The only question was…which one was better?

"Do you have anything to say to me?" Samus asked.

"Besides surrender?" Mario asked.

"You know I'm not going to."

"Good," Mario said with a grin, "I didn't want you to."

Mario dashed forward, crouching under Samus's initial shot and side-stepping her kick before landing a powerful uppercut to her chin, sending her shooting up. He jumped up but as he neared her she flipped around in midair, smashing her legs into his head just as he reached her level and sending him shooting back to the ground, which he hit hard. Samus dropped gracefully just in front of him.

She shot off another burst of paralyzing energy but Mario spun while standing up, hitting it with his cape and reflecting it back at Samus. The bolt stunned her, which gave Mario plenty of time to charge at her, punching her hard in the stomach before sending her flying with a kick to the chest. She hit the ground and skidded…and Mario jumped high in the air before crashing down towards her.

She rolled out of the way, his fist impaling itself into the ground where her face had been. Quicker than he could react she swept out with her legs while getting to her feet, kicking him multiple times. She lunged forward to punch him, but he caught her hand. A second missed strike and he had her other arm in his steely grip. She kicked at him, but that close and she couldn't get any power behind it. Grunting slightly Mario lifted her by her arms and flipped her over his head into his frequently used slam to the ground. Samus cried out but was unable to defend herself as Mario prepared another attack.

While this was going on Raichu had ran to inspect Falco and Diddy, both of whom were moving. A quick jolt from Raichu had them up and about, if a bit grouchy. By the time both were ready for combat Mario was preparing to finish off Samus…they had to move fast.

Mario slammed Samus to the ground twice more, each more painful than the last. Samus could feel her bones starting to crack, even with her increased toughness Mario was simply to powerful to beat on her own. Luckily for her, she was not alone.

Raichu and Diddy leapt onto Mario's back, grabbing his cape. Furious he let go of Samus and tried to grab the two of them…just as Falco burrowed into his side with the Fire Falco maneuver.

As the corkscrew of flaming bird drilled into Mario, Diddy and Raichu jumped off Mario, yanking his cape off at the same time. Hurriedly they ran off while Mario grabbed Falco before the bird could stop the attack and threw him at Samus. Eyes burning with frightening fury he turned towards Diddy and Raichu…just as they tossed his cape off the side of the stage.

"NO!" Mario yelled, shooting off a massive burst of flame at the two, which they barely dodged by diving in opposite directions.

Falco got off Samus and fired a few bolts at Mario, irritating him enough to turn around. He shot some fireballs at Falco but he reflected them back. Mario took the fire without blinking, scorches, slashes and bruises evident all over Mario. He stood proudly as the four surrounded him, weapons drawn, each just as beaten as the plumber.

"You're going to lose," Diddy said, "Please, just…stop."

"I'm not. No matter which way this battle ends up going I won. I changed my life. For once…I did something I cared about…even if it was the wrong thing."

"You know it was wrong! How could anything you hope to do here help anything?" Falco said, "This is all pointless!"  
"Pointless?" Mario said, "I've never been told anything I did was pointless before…well, with the exception of minor villains I quickly eliminated. It's…nice. Show me. Show me how pointless this dream of mine is."  
"We will," Raichu told him, "You _and _Kidar are both going to fail here and now. We've beaten bigger baddies than you guys, even if you were with us for that. "

"But I'm not a baddie," Mario said with a smile, his faint Italian accent giving his words a disturbingly cheerful sound, "I'm a hero…the greatest one of all. Surely you don't think you can stop a legend?"

"You're no legend," Samus said harshly, "You're a sick man. Everything you did before now will be tainted with the knowledge of the evil you've done. You've eliminated any chance you had of being the greatest hero…and I assure you, you won't be remembered as a very good villain."

"Fine," Mario said, the smile fading, "Come on then…COME ON!"

As Mario screamed, fire erupted from his entire body…and the four attacked.

As the battle neared its final stages, its first "casualty" began to move. White-gloved hands twitched, as a mind tortured by commands it dared not disobeyed was forced to consciousness for a conclusive strike…

Kirby and Link could not get through Kidar's defense. He weaved and blocked with amazing speed and it was only because they had three swords and a shield to his two blades that they weren't breathing through deadly stab wounds in their guts. Still he used a minimum of energy with his elegant movements compared to Link and Kirby's frantic strikes followed by equally frantic blocks. It was only a matter of time until he tired them out…and they knew it.

Kirby was the one who decided to do something about their seemingly hopeless situation. He let Link take the lead, and Kidar easily blocked both his shield jab and sword stab with his blades…and Kirby threw both of his swords at Kidar.

The mage spun away from Link and batted them both out of the air…and that was when Kirby ran up and slammed the startled swordsman with his massive hammer, the blow literally lifting Kidar off his feet and sending him hurtling through the air. He flew several feet before landing roughly at which point Kirby dashed up and swung again at the prone man…just as Kidar swiped with his sword.

There was a loud whiff, followed by a thunk…as Kirby's wooden hammer head was cleanly removed from its handle. Kirby stared at his ruined weapon for a second, which gave Kidar plenty of time to kick out and smash Kirby in the face. He jumped up and hurled one of his swords at the charging Link. The point bashed off his shield hard enough to force Link to stumble back and Kidar raised his now free hand towards Kirby.

The puffball stared up at Kidar, his mouth silently forming a questioning poyo…and a dark burst of energy shot out from Kidar's palm and slammed into Kirby directly between his eyes. Time seemed to freeze as Kirby's eyes closed and he stopped moving.

"What did you do?!" Link demanded, as Kidar summoned his sword back to him.

"Just an instant unconsciousness spell…don't worry, it only works if they're extremely…weak," Kidar told him, idly twirling his blades around.

"You're going to pay for everything you've done, scum," Link spat, "I don't want to do this but-"

"Oh please," Kidar interrupted, "This is exactly what you want to do. You and me, one on one…and complete justification for your killing me. But it won't be that easy…you're fighting to kill…I'm fighting to keep you alive. Who's in the wrong now?"

"Don't pull that crap on me mage," Link warned, "You want me alive for evil…I want you dead for good. You're as bad as they come, and nothing you say will change my mind."

"So stuck in your ways Link…it should make it all the more fun when I train you to adore me."

"Never going to happen," Link said, sword and shield raised, "Enough chit-chat…let's see how M.C.'s pet does against the Hero of Time."  
Kidar stiffened and an icy tone entered his voice.

"You will learn to never refer to me as such, boy."  
"Touched a nerve? Didn't even know you had one, you emotionless sack of-"

"You won't make me angry…you'll just make me more determined to end this."  
"Fine," Link said, "Let's do this."  
They ran towards each other, and the clash of blades echoed throughout the arena.

The initial charge of the four attacking Mario was completely rebuffed by a wave of fire that erupted from him, sending all of them flying back, charred and smoking. Diddy was the first up as Mario began glowing again. Mario gathered his energy as Diddy pulled back his guitar…when a blue blur tackled Diddy and slammed his head violently to the ground.

It was Meta Knight. Falco was the first to react, and the closest as Meta proceeded to bash Diddy's head repeated to the floor. A sharp snap kick knocked Meta off the severely unconscious and damaged Diddy and as Meta recovered and dived at Falco, white gloved arms outstretched, a second snap kick sent Meta crashing to the ground, where he joined Diddy in sleepy-time, a time that would hopefully last until this whole thing could be sorted out.

While Falco dealt with Meta and Samus tried to get her breath back from her near charbroiling experience Raichu dashed at Mario. The plumber saw him coming but Raichu was too fast to do anything about it…he charged up a quick Skull Bash and slammed into Mario's stomach, quickly flipping and grabbing onto his overalls…before releasing all of his remaining electricity into him.

Unfortunately it wasn't as much as Raichu could hope, and Mario managed to fight past the extreme pain long enough to punch Raichu three times in the head. Tacked on with his lack of electrical energy and Raichu slumped to the ground, out cold.

Mario looked up to see Falco and Samus running at him. Reacting quickly he ran forward and then raised his hands to block as both did a jumping kick at him, the force of the attacks knocking him back. He responded quickly though and punched out, catching Falco a light blow on the side, before ducking under Samus's whip.

He rolled again, getting between Samus and Falco and then planted his hands on the ground and spun around quickly, knocking both Samus and Falco down with his feet. He leapt up into the air while they rolled to avoid a suspected follow-attack…but they weren't expecting him to shoot off several beams of fire while his leap carried him higher.

Samus and Falco ducked as the beams of red death shot down…but while they soon felt the heat go up, they didn't start burning and dying. Confused they looked around to see that Mario had trapped them in a small ring of fire, with red and orange flames four feet high surrounding them, creating a ten-foot diameter arena. As Mario dropped back to the ground in front of them they realized they were forced into an extremely close-quarters combat…against a foe stronger than both of them combined.

They attacked anyways. Mario threw the first punch but Samus and Falco avoided it, the flames licking their backs as Samus kicked and Falco slashed with his wings. Mario managed to duck under the kick but Falco's slash hit him hard. Mario retaliated by kicking Falco in the stomach, sending him stumbling into the fire. Falco yelled out in pain and ran forward…right into Mario's fist, knocking the bird out.

"Just you left Samus," Mario said as Falco crumpled.

"You have a talent for stating the obvious," Samus said sarcastically.

"You're right. You're on fire."

Samus looked at herself in confusion before Mario launched a ball of fire at her, hitting her in the stomach. She put it out quickly and ducked under his second strike.

"Clever," Samus spat, "But I'm not giving up."

"Fine by me," Mario said, as the fire faded, "This will be over soon."

Samus ran forward, her whip extending out, the point ending in a ball of energy. Mario sidestepped and lunged forward, his deadly hands just barely missing Samus as she backed away. She punched and he grabbed but she smashed her elbow into his chin before he could slam her like before. Angrily he jumped up and kicked his legs at her. She dodged but he dropped faster than she could have guessed and used his forearm to block her hastily thrown kick.

A sudden jerk forward and Mario was within Samus's guard. He jumped up, catching her under the chin in a brutal, but familiar Super Jump Punch, his fist bumping her up bit by painful bit. Samus was trapped in the attack until Mario retracted his fist, going up a little higher than Samus…before smashing his fists down in a brutal hammerhead blow that hit her in the back.

She shot down, hitting the ground chest-first a second before Mario landed next to her. She groaned slightly and tried to move, but a short, sharp kick made her just as unconscious as all the others. The fight, at least for Mario…was done.

But Link and Kidar were still going strong and now with no one else to get in the way he was able to go all out. As soon as he got the chance he threw out a Spin Attack, the multiple strikes preventing Kidar from attacking as he frantically blocked and dodged the whirling dervish of death…and the wave of magic after the end of the attack sent him skidding back.

Immediately Link sheathed his sword and pulled out his Hookshot, the point skimming past Kidar's shoulder. Kidar smacked it with his sword and the chain wrapped around his blade. Link flipped a switch and the Hookshot began to retract, yanking Kidar's sword out of his hand. Kidar pointed a finger at Link and the Hylian ducked under a thin beam of purple energy, before grabbing Kidar's sword and pocketing the Hookshot. Link raised the blade so similar to his own…before it vanished and reappeared back in Kidar's hands.

"Nice try Link, but it'll take more than that to disarm me," Kidar said laughing.

"Alright then…more it is," Link said, pulling out his boomerang and throwing it hard. Kidar crouched under it, and then raised his right-hand sword to block Link's powerful overhead strike.

Kidar whipped his second blade around and Link easily blocked with his shield. Kidar let his sword bounce off the metal plate before bringing it down in a slash that Link had to move his foot to avoid. Kidar stepped back…and slashed out behind him, cutting Link's boomerang in half. The two pieces kept going and hit the ground behind Link before coming to a silent stop, the broken wood completely useless now.

"Nice trick, but obvious," Kidar said, "I expect more from the Hero of Time, and the Bearer of the Triforce of Courage. Come on…show me how you beat Ganondorf!"

"You're going to regret asking that," Link said, pulling out a bomb.

"A bomb? That's the best you have? If that's what you want…" Kidar said, sounding vaguely disappointed, as Link tossed the bomb at him.

Kidar kicked it away and it exploded harmlessly out of range. Smirking he looked back at Link…only to jerk one of his swords up to deflect the arrow from entering his head. Link shot off a few more and Kidar dodged, ducked…and allowed a few to dink off his armor. After four more arrow shots he laughed again….which is when Link fired off a Bomb Arrow.

It smashed into his chest and exploded, knocking Kidar off his feet. It was Link's turn to smirk as he fired off three more Bomb Arrows, each hitting Kidar or at least getting close enough to hurt him with the explosion. Link paused, his fifth bomb arrow notched and ready to fire, as the dark and acrid smoke obscured Kidar. He waited for a good shot…when a beam of violet shot out from the smoke, slicing his bow in two and leaving a deep gash along his arm. The bomb arrow dropped and exploded at his feet, leaving Link coughing and throwing aside his now useless bow.

"Nice try Link," Kidar said, waving his arms, forcing the smoke to dissipate around him.

"Wasn't nice enough," Link growled, using the fading smoke cover to pull out his Hookshot again.

"Yes, well, perhaps next time you could-!" Kidar stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding Link's Hookshot.

Kidar dropped a blade and stretched out a hand and grabbed the chain as it shot past him. Link flipped the switch, but the chain didn't retract. Link pulled but the Hookshot remained extended and trapped in Kidar's hand. A violet tentacle, mostly transparent, emerged bloodlessly from Kidar's palm and slowly snaked its way along the chain. It had a ghostly hue about it…but it was all too familiar to Link from his recent nightmares.

Link pulled some more, but as the tentacle inched closer to him he dropped the Hookshot, wary of allowing the sickening tentacle to touch him. The tentacle retracted back toward Kidar, dragging the device with it. Once the tentacle was absorbed back into Kidar he was holding the Hookshot, although it disintegrated a second later, collapsing in on itself. Kidar blew the dust fragments away and summoned his sword back to his hand, grinning at Link.

"It's a good thing you didn't let that tentacle make contact with you…as you can see, it isn't very safe to touch. Any more tricks Link, or are we done?"

Link responded by pulling his sword and shield again. Kidar tensed, expecting another charge as Link pointed his blade at him…but was caught off guard by the beam of energy that shot off from the sword. Kidar ducked and it passed over his head, but Link merely shot off another one, which clipped Kidar's leg and cut a groove in his armor there.

A third beam fired by Link was met by a violet one from Kidar's blade. Both met in midair and fizzled out. Link fired four more times and each one was met by Kidar's counter-attack. Link merely nodded and ran at Kidar.

Kidar started the attack this time. He struck at Link, one sword going towards his head, the other aimed at his legs. Link raised his shield to block the headshot, and then pivoted his legs out of the way of the leg strike. Before Kidar could recover Link used the Master Sword to slash at Kidar's back, tearing the cloak but not penetrating the armor.

Kidar jumped back before Link could do any actual damage and stabbed at Link several times in a rapid-fire attack. Link blocked the majority with his shield but the force was enough to send him sliding back, and with a sudden rush forward Kidar knocked aside Link's shield and stabbed the swordsman in the right arm, leaving a massive gash and cutting several crucial parts of the arm.

Link screamed in pain but managed to move his other arm enough to smack Kidar in the chin with the hilt of the Master Sword. Kidar stumbled back, a trickle of blood leaking out of his mouth as Link's right arm dangled uselessly at his side.

Link hissed again as the pain shot up through his mangled arm, but he managed to open his hand enough to drop the shield to the ground. Kidar chuckled as Link raised his sword up, a faint golden glow showing on his hand.

"You still want to fight? You don't stand a chance. What can you hope to do now?"

"This," Link stated, flipping his hand around to point the Triforce symbol at Kidar. It glowed brighter than Kidar had ever seen it…and a single beam of pure courageous energy shot out of it and slammed into Kidar. The twin Triforces formed around him, holding him in place as Link flew forward and allowed the full power of the Triforce of Courage to guide his strikes.

Kidar wasn't as trapped as Ganondorf…he was still able to move his swords enough to block any crippling blows from Link's super-powered barrage, but as the furious assault continued Kidar weakened and Link was able to bring the Master Sword crashing into first the left-hand sword, knocking it from Kidar's hand and sending it clattering uselessly to the ground. A quick slashing motion in the opposite direction knocked the second sword out of his hand and Link pulled back his sword for the final blow.

Kidar tried to summon his swords to his hands again, but they stopped upon reaching the barrier Link had erected. He stared at Link, true fear of his own mortality for the first time in his short existence evident in his violet eyes as Link plunged his sword into Kidar's chest, cutting through the armor like it was mist, but stopping before going too deep into the mage.

Silence followed…as Link stared into Kidar's stunned and pain-filled eyes. The silence seemed to last for hours until a voice called out in a tone barely recognizable as Link's, so filled with righteous hatred it was.

"Now DIE you twisted spawn of evil!"

Link grunted and drove the Sword of Evil's Bane all the way through Kidar's heart until it erupted out from his back in a horrible sound of tortured flesh, metal and bone. And Link relaxed in the knowledge that it was over…

But it was not…


	53. Conclusion?

**Clash of the Smashers**

**Chapter Fifty-Three: Conclusion…?**

_**The Prison…**_

"Donkey Punch!" Donkey Kong said gleefully, punching the door of Zelda's cage off. It clattered to the ground, narrowly missing the princess.

"I appreciate the help, but…never ever say that again," Zelda told Donkey. He gave her a confused look, before shrugging widely and moving out of the way.

Zelda calmly stepped out of the cage, brushing her dress absentmindedly while everyone gathered around the door, which was in the process of being Falcon Punched. Well, almost everyone. Ness, Popo and Nana grumbled in the corner of their now open cages, refusing to join the others.

Fox shot his blaster into the center of the door, where Falcon was hitting it with his bleeding knuckles. The continuous stream of fire and absurdly powerful punches were taking their toll on the solid door and the center was glowing red, a glow that was rapidly spreading outwards.

Zelda moved behind the group by the door closed her eyes and began moving her gloved hands around slowly. An aura of power surrounded the princess, while Fox hissed and dropped his overheated blaster. After two more punches Zelda opened her eyes and shot her hands forward, fists clenched, shooting off a ball of red magic at the door that connected with the center.

Nothing happened at first, but Zelda yelled to the others to get out of the way. They were reluctant to move, until the door began shaking, at which point they were eager to dive to the sides of the door. With a small grunt Zelda opened her hands and the door exploded, sending door chunks to both rooms. Most of the Smashers were out of the way of the debris and Zelda deflected it with a hastily erected diamond shield that covered her entire body and faded as quickly as it appeared.

"Alright Zelda!" Luigi said excitedly, "We are totally out of here!"

"Finally! Freedom!" Peach said.

Several more shouts of joy were heard as the Smashers all hurried into the newly opened room. Zelda was the last of the main group to leave the prison and once she was out of sight, Ness, Popo and Nana slowly emerged from their cages and hesitantly walked towards the exit.

Unfortunately, soon after piling into the room they discovered that they were not free. The portal Ganondorf and the others had used was gone, faded when the crystal in FD had been destroyed. All they could see was the now useless screen and machinery beneath it.

"No way," Roy said in shock as the others began to spread out, "After all that…just to be trapped here?

Fox ran over to the heap of machinery beneath the screen hoping to find something, while Zelda dashed over to the alcove where the portal had been, the residual magic alerting her of its presence. The others simply ran their hands over the walls and floor, desperately searching for a hidden door or passage.

"There has to be a way out," Marth said calmly, carefully probing the wall next to the door, as Ness and the Ice Climbers walked into the room, "Ganondorf and the others arrived, and left here by some means that we can discover."

"Andross's brains!" Fox cursed, slamming his fists down on the worthless hunk of machinery, "This thing is fried, it does nothing now!"

Their was an air of silence as the ember of the other's hope dwindled…but the spark was lit anew when Zelda muttered a few words and shot her hands forward. A burst of bright energy erupted from her hands and hit the wall. The wall shimmered slightly and the Smashers held their breath…and then released it in one relieved gasp as a portal appeared, murky and muddy-looking, but definitely there.

"Alright Zelda!" Luigi said, pumping his fist in the air.

"Sweet!" Peach said, spinning a bit.

The Smashers started to surge forward, but Zelda raised a hand, eyes narrowed in concentration. The portal flickered.

"Wait!"

"I'm not waiting for anything! I am getting **out** of here!" Roy said, dashing for the portal.

"I said WAIT!" Zelda commanded, raising her hand and hitting Roy with a bolt of energy that knocked him back.

"What are you doing Zelda?" Marth demanded.

"She's crazy, who cares, let's go!" Ness said in a rush, shoving past Fox and Donkey and running towards the portal, as it flickered again.

"No!" Zelda said, shooting a red ball of energy at Ness. He stopped and raised a spherical shield of glimmering green and blue energy that absorbed the attack.

Startled Zelda took a step back as Ness dropped the shield and then pushed pass Zelda, enhancing his shove with his psychic abilities enough to knock her to the ground. He dived at the portal, a giant grin forming on his large face…that faded into a wince as the portal flickered out and Ness crashed head-first into the wall behind it.

The others all cringed as his head made a sickening crack against the wall, but none made a move forward to see if he was okay. Zelda got to her feet, brushing her robe again and adopting a look of haughty smugness.

"I warned him. I am not powerful enough to maintain the portal…whatever gave it form before now has faded…perhaps forever."

"So…what? Are we stuck here?" Peach demanded, "I am a princess! Being trapped in this dungeon is not a fitting place for me!"  
"Doesn't stop you from getting kidnapped every couple of weeks," Luigi said sarcastically.

Peach sniffed angrily at that, but didn't respond.

"So what now?" Popo demanded, "Do we just wait around for Ganondorf and the others to come back and do what they want to us?"

"We shall fight back," Marth said, "They shall not imprison us again."  
"Falcon-greement!" Captain Falcon said, "Falcon will paunch those guys till they…uh…stop moving!"

The three Pokémon echoed their sentiments, although how the others were able to determine that was difficult, since they all spoke only their names.

"Oh shut up!" Roy said, "We're stuck here…and we won't last long enough to fight back!"

Roy hurled his sword at the wall where the portal had been, where it plunged deep into the stone a foot over Ness's head.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Luigi asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Nana said, as if Luigi was an idiot, "There's no food or water. We're going to starve."  
"Oh."

"Well…maybe not," Fox said with a grin at Ness, "At least not all of us."

"No!" Zelda commanded, "We're not eating anybody!"

"I didn't say we should," Fox said, raising his hands up to block Zelda's accusation.

Marth took a long step towards Ness, cape billowing out behind him as he came to a stop in front of the unconscious psychic. He looked down…and raised his sword.

"Marth?" Roy said hesitantly, "What are you doing?"  
"I was joking!" Fox said frantically, "I didn't mean to-"

Marth plunged his sword down.

"NO!" Zelda yelled…as Marth's blade dug deep into the wall a bit above Roy's sword.

"As I suspected," Marth murmured to himself, removing his sword and sheathing it. He began to run his hand over the wall.

"What the hell was that Marth?" Roy demanded, "You scared the ah!"  
Roy barely managed to catch his sword as Marth casually yanked it out and tossed it to him.

"This is a door," Marth said, gesturing at the seemingly solid stone wall.

"How can you tell?" Fox asked.

"Because our swords won't cut through stone that easily. This is wood."  
"A way out?" Zelda questioned, stepping forward, her dress gracefully flowing around her as she raised her hand.

"Falcon's got it!" Captain Falcon said excitedly, pushing past Zelda. Before the others could say or do anything he raised his bloody knuckles…and Falcon Punched the door.

The door immediately exploded outward, revealing another chamber. Falcon stood there gleefully for a second, before lowering his hand and allowing a frown to cut across his features.

"Ow," he said rather calmly, cradling his openly bloody hand, "My hand…hurts."

He stepped aside as Zelda stepped past him and over Ness, into the new chamber. Falcon hurried in after her, and they were followed by the others…into a massive and full hall.

It was easily twice the size of both the prison and meeting room combined, and was packed to the brim with crates that stacked up towards a dim ceiling. The lights in the room, a combination of glowing stone and torches were not enough to illuminate the entire room, but they were enough to reveal the writing on the crates.

"Looks like we won't starve," Luigi said, inspecting a crate that said, rather blatantly _Food._

"Perhaps this won't be too awful," Peach said, as Donkey Kong began prying off the lid of one labeled _Water._

"Well, at least know we know where the food they fed us with came from," Fox said while looking at the other crates.

"We can't stay here forever Zelda," Marth stated, as she looked around the room.

"I know," Zelda said, "But until someone finds us…it'll do. It has to."

_**On Final Destination…**_

Silence. After the long and multiple battles, Final Destination was silent. No sounds could be heard, as if the entire universe was holding its breath.

Mario stared in shock at the sword jutting out from his ally's body, while the unconscious bodies of his previous comrades lay around him.

Link stared deep into Kidar's pain-filled eyes, as he waited for the Master Sword, the Sword of Evil's Bane, to purge the evil around it…namely Kidar.

But it didn't…and the silence left the arena in one loud, throaty chuckle. One that came…from Kidar.

"So close, Link," Kidar hissed, placing his hands on the blade, as it continued to glow faintly, "But not quite close enough."

Link could only gape as Kidar's face began to become covered in shadow.

"I don't understand…that went through your heart…no man could survive that!"  
"I am no man…M.C. created me to be the greatest warrior of all time…do you really think I am kept alive by organs and flesh?"

Kidar's entire body began to darken, and small violet tendrils began to poke out of his back.

"But you're evil…the Master Sword should have purged you from this world!" Link said, his hands shaking, but the sword remained locked in Kidar as the mage became a silhouette of shadow, and the tendrils lengthened into tentacles.

"Clearly I am not the evil the Master Sword was designed to purge," Kidar said, his voice turning into a deeper, more resonant one, "It was made to seal away Ganondorf, and other foes in _your _dimension…which I am not a part of. It burns yes…but it is survivable."

Kidar's transformation, from man to monster finally hit Link as the beast that had been his enemy now towered over him, his sacred sword slowly being consumed by a writhing amorphous mass with sickly smooth tentacles waving about its growing self.

"Agh!" Link yelled, as the violet-black gunk started to spread to his hands. He tried to tear them away, but the mass held strong, and as Link frantically struggled against their icy embrace the tentacles encircled him, "No! I won't let you win!"

His Triforce glowed brilliantly, shooting out beams of golden light that pierced Kidar, forcing the creature he had become to let out a pained shriek as they penetrated his shapeless body. The points of light rotated around as the tentacles sought to completely cover him and one of the points of light sliced a tentacle clean off…although upon hitting the ground it slithered towards Link before wrapping itself around his legs.

Link started to scream as he was sucked into the mass of horror but he was soon silenced as tentacles sought to cover his body, before he vanished into the beast Kidar had become.

The mass of writing tentacles shook and shivered, its imprisoned occupant hidden from view. Mario ignored the monstrosity, instead scooping up both Falco and Samus and slinging them over his shoulders. He then picked Diddy and Raichu up and carried them in his hands. He easily strode over to Kidar, the weight of his former companions like nothing to him.

Mario came to a stop in front of the horror, casually dumping his cargo down in front of it. Despite lacking any kind of actual features or even eyes, it appeared to look down at them…before disgorging Link with a disgusting schloop. He plopped down near the others, seemingly unharmed, although he was as motionless as the rest of them, and a patch of the violet gunk was attached to his left hand.

A sudden violent motion from the mass, and the tentacles shot out, stabbing into the heads of Kirby, Falco, Samus, Raichu and Diddy. They moaned slightly as it penetrated their skin, but it quickly retracted, leaving no marks and the five became motionless once again.

Mario gave Kidar a questioning look, as the being began to sink back into itself, slowly reforming its shape into that of a man.

"What did you just do?"

"I made sure they won't wake up until we want them too. We should leave now."

"Why? We won…no one is left to stand against us," Mario said, "All we need to do now is find the others."

"No," Kidar answered softly, "M.C. said he had made contact with worlds we haven't visited. There are still those that served him, and they might know of this place. I am not willing to stand here and do battle with additional foes."

"Are you weak?" Mario asked.

Kidar flashed him an exasperated look.

"No, just smart. Do you seriously think that either of us is up to more? We've done what we accomplished. We should leave."

"Any ideas where to?"

At that Kidar appeared hesitant, and an unfamiliar look of uncertainty entered his gaze.

"Actually…no. I haven't been around for too long, I don't have any hidden fortresses or something," Kidar said, "I suppose I could make one…but-"

"Not necessary," Mario said with a smile, "I know just the place."

_**Peach's Castle…**_

"Toadsworth! Reports are coming in!"

Toadsworth looked up from his pacing in front of the throne in the castle to see one of the younger Toads running towards him. Sighing slightly, the elderly Toad raised a hand, and the Toad came to a skidding stop.

"Reports! They're in!" The Toad said excitedly.

"I heard. Reports of what?" Toadsworth asked.

"The Koopas! They've retreated!"

Toadsworth immediately stopped his pacing and shambled over to the Toad as quickly as the elderly cane-using Toad could.

"They've what?!"

"They've retreated! They pulled out of the outlying sections of the city and gone back to their castle!"

"Did we beat them?"  
"No! We were actually being pushed back, but then it was like they panicked and ran away!"

"Was perhaps Ma-"

Before Toadsworth could finish his inquiry, a large vortex appeared behind him, right in front the throne. It swirled with an eerie violet light and as both Toadsworth and the Toad turned to peer at it, wind swept around them. Toadsworth put his hand over his eyes and squinted as he could barely see something forming in the center of the mysterious object. The other Toad tried to say something, but the wind blocked out his voice.

Then there was a sudden sharp gust that blew the Toad off his feet, and almost sent Toadsworth stumbling, if not for his hunched position and cane…and just as suddenly as it had appeared the vortex had vanished.

In its place were nine beings, two of which were standing. As the red-capped one looked around, Toadsworth's eyes widened in recognition.

"Master Mario! You have returned!"

Mario ignored the Toad, but gave Kidar a small grin, "So, what do you think?"  
"Good idea. Course it will need some work…"

"Master Mario?" Toadsworth questioned, "Did you find the Princess?"

Mario stepped towards Toadsworth, hopping over a few of his unconscious captives.

"Not yet. Don't worry, I have an idea where she is but until we find her, I'm taking charge of this Kingdom."

"Master…Mario?" Toadsworth said, startled by the clear diction with which Mario was using, "You are not of royal blood…you can't…"  
"I've saved this place enough times…don't worry about the formalities, I'm not declaring myself King…just making sure things that need to get done, get done."  
"Of course," Toadsworth said, confused, "But what are they-"

Mario shook his head as Toadsworth gestured at the unmoving Smashers.

"Don't worry about them. Leave."

Toadsworth looked completely flabbergasted, but followed the order. He was about halfway to the exit of the throne room when a voice called out.

"Wait!" Kidar commanded.

Toadsworth stopped and turned around, although when he saw it was Kidar who was speaking to him, his confusion deepened.

"Get some Toads in here to drag these people to the dungeons."

Toadsworth looked rather indignant, but before he could tell Kidar how he was _not _going to do that, he saw Kidar's violet eyes…and decided it would be safer to just do it.

"The castle dungeons won't hold them," Mario warned.

"I'll reinforce them. Don't worry," Kidar told him, "And as for your hammer and cape…I'll see what I can do about getting them here."

"I'd appreciate it. What now?"

Kidar looked at Mario, before turning towards the throne.

"Now…we see how far we can go."

**THE END…SO FAR**

AN: Refer to Profile for info


End file.
